


Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

by DarthAnimus



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Bunny's my go-to punching bag, M/M, Post-Movie, Protective Jack, The Guardians are family, Whump, alter!Tooth is a cannibal, evil alternates from another universe, seriously there's so much Bunny Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-12 17:15:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2118183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthAnimus/pseuds/DarthAnimus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In one universe Jack Frost is the immortal remnant of a serial killer. In another one the Sandman is a horror story told to children who stay up late. In a yet another one there is no Tooth Fairy, but a malevolent witch coveting children's teeth. Some universes right from that one is one where the demonic Yule Goat punishes misbehaving children. There is also a universe where Easter isn't a holiday for children, but a time of worship for a petty and volatile old god.</p><p>These worlds will grant Pitch the allies he seeks in order to defeat the Guardians once and for all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Author's Note:**

> This story is actually a response on the rotg_kink community to this prompt: http://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/2200.html?thread=2920344#cmt2920344
> 
> I wasn't satisfied with the original start for the story, which would have basically been just a line of introductions for the evil!Guardians, so this version is going to have a more involved plot from second chapter onward.

If there was something Pitch could call his best attribute, it was his patience. The King of Nightmares would never dismiss a plan or plot simply because it would take too long to complete. No, Pitch had spent years upon years slowly corrupting the Sandman’s dream sand to suit his own purposes one little, innocent child’s dream at a time. Figuring how to hijack the golden sand had taken almost as long as it had taken to gather enough sand for his attack on the Guardians, but Pitch had never even considered giving up on that plan.

But even the decades Pitch had spent on his latest plan to overthrow the influence of the Guardians were nothing compared to the centuries Pitch had spent on preparing for the assault he was only just now able to truly set up. The roots of his new scheme went as far back as the time before there were any Guardians to speak of, to the end of the Golden Age.

The keystone of this longwinded plan was the Dimensional Sieve. It was an artefact of the House of Lunanoff, an item Pitch had originally claimed as nothing more than a symbol of his victory as his Fearlings laid waste to the empire. Back then the Sieve’s only power had been to grant a member of the House of Lunanoff the ability to peer into nearby universes in order to obtain a forewarning of things that might loom in the future. Sometimes Pitch felt there must have been a duplicate of the Sieve in the Man in the Moon’s possession for him to be able to plan so efficiently.

However, Pitch hadn’t been able to get the Sieve to work for himself when he’d first obtained it, and at first Pitch hadn’t held much interest in looking in on other versions himself and his enemies. Still, tinkering with the Sieve became something of a past time, something to keep Pitch’s mind occupied when he was travelling through space, on the heels of the remnants of the Tsar’s armies. Still, by the time Pitch had ended up stranded on Earth, the Sieve had started to respond.

The worlds the Sieve showed to Pitch were nothing like his own, leading him to assume that the Sieve could only show him far away universes, where events went much differently than in his own. It was a shame that the Sieve would only work in a crooked way during the time Pitch would have actually found use in being shown a way off the primitive planet and back to the stars.

When the Man in the Moon decided to form the Guardians, Pitch had gained a new appreciation for the device. If these spirits, both celestial and Earth-born, were to be the Man in the Moon’s champions, then shouldn’t Pitch also have his own champions of the very opposites of these heroic, noble and caring protectors? That was what had prompted Pitch to see what the distant universes inside the Sieve had to offer.

There were countless worlds within the multiverse, and innumerable ways people could change. A fall into the darkness could be anything, from an accidental trip to a purposeful sprint, from a gradual change to an instantaneous jump. Pitch had spent ages looking through these myriad of ways that heroes could become villains, all the while trying to find a way to alter the way the Sieve worked even further.

The Sieve wasn’t something he had continuously worked on, but more of a project for his spare time. After all, Pitch could hardly consider himself a fearsome and relentless foe to his enemies if he spent all of his time simply puttering away in a workshop like some facsimile of Santa Claus. But Pitch did experiment, with whatever technology he had at his disposal as well as with the amount of magical arts he knew, even going as far as combining the two in an attempt to get the results he wanted.

After the Guardians had defeated him with the help of their new teammate Jack Frost, Pitch worked on the Sieve more relentlessly than ever. And, several years later, he finally could do what he had been dreaming of. He could finally not only see into the other universes, but speak into them and, more importantly, reach through the Sieve into them. And the first dark Guardian he summoned through was the reflection of the first spirit that had ever risen against Pitch Black on Earth soil, the first one to try and force fear back after Pitch had become the master of it.

Pitch had a variety of reasons for his choice. Firstly, it was poetic that he would first bring to his side an ally who would match the first one Sanderson Mansnoozie had gained as an ally. Secondly, finding his very own Tooth Fairy had been something of a practise run. When it came to fairies, it was quite simple to separate the dark ones from those who were light or even neutral in the grand scheme of things. And the fairy Pitch had found was very dark indeed.

Calling _La Belle Dame des Dents_ a fairy was perhaps slightly erroneous. What the Beldam did was much more witch-like in its execution. Her story was a rather simple cautionary tale, that went something like this. The Beldam was a beautiful woman who lived in a beautiful house with a beautiful garden and a beautiful aviary filled with beautiful birds. The beauty of all these things was so grand that no child who came across the abode ever wanted to leave.

A girl or a boy who’d recently lost a tooth was the only one who could hear the inviting birdsong leading them to the enchanted house that was always the color most welcoming to them. And in the house they would meet a beautiful woman dressed in a frock made of feathers, who would give them treats and have her birds sing to them some more. The house itself would be full of interesting items, as well as crooks and crannies to play in, while the gardens were full of wonders to discover and all the other sorts of things little children delight in.

The child would ask the woman’s name, and she would insist on nothing specific. Most often she is the Lady, and only very rarely is she called Beldam. And the woman would always be glad to have a visitor, as she lived with only her birds for company. You see, even though the birds had beautiful feathers in all the colors of gemstones and they sang beautiful songs, they weren’t much for conversation. But the birds would continuously sing, while the child would play with all the toys to be found in the house, peek through all the rooms, and wander around the garden that seemed to never end.

Such a place was difficult to leave, so many children would ask to stay, ask what they would have to give to never have to leave the magical house and its wonders again. And the Lady would ask for the lost tooth. The only way to escape the woman’s grasp would be to burn the tooth she so covets, but still many children, taken in by her promises, would give the woman that piece of themselves. And then the Lady would control them completely.

There would be some days of play still, and delicious food that was either sweet or spicy. The Lady was a master baker, creating cakes and treats and pies of all sorts. And sometimes, when one of her brightly-colored birds grew tired of singing, the old thing would be baked into a pie. But that was the way of things, the woman would explain to the child, all beautiful things lose their lustre with time.

However, the Lady would always, eventually, grow bored of play, and then the time would come that the witch would seat the child in a little room, and take pliers to their mouth, removing every tooth one by one, sealing their fate forever.

Beldam does so love her birds, but birds don’t have teeth.

It was a good tale, an often-told one. There were many useful lessons to be learned from it, the parents thought as they spoke the words to their children. Too much curiosity can lead to ruin. Be suspicious of things too good to be true. Many joys are fleeting or downright fake. Never give too much of yourself to someone lest they use it to hurt you.

Parents would tell the story again and again, generation after generation, with the best of intentions, but the more the story was told, the more children grew to believe it, to fear _La Belle Dame des Dents_ , the Beautiful Lady of the Teeth. And that fear and belief made the fairy strong and, as such, very useful to Pitch indeed.

Although with all that belief came also caution. When children feared the mere tales of the Beldam they were much less likely to fall into the trap laid by the fairy. It was through that weakness that Pitch reached her, offering her a new hunting ground filled with children who would not know any better. And when Pitch had offered a hand through the portal created by the Sieve, the Beldam had grasped it readily, allowing Pitch to pull her through.

When Pitch’s dim eyes met a pair of coldly expectant violet ones, the Boogeyman at first marvelled at how much this feather-clad spirit resembled the Tooth Fairy. Then the fairy grinned, and Pitch could see the twin rows of needle-like teeth. Pitch offered the Beldam his most charming smile. He could use this so well, this familiar façade hiding a dangerous enemy.

Pitch welcomed the Beldam into his realm and proceeded to tell her about a little town filled with inquisitive children. But, even as he did so, Pitch’s mind was already plotting, the deadly sharpness of the fairy’s talon-like fingers reminding Pitch of a spider just waiting to lure in unsuspecting little flies. And he had just the flies in mind for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually did a bunch of research for the character of _La Belle Dame des Dents_ , which is why there are some references to various stories attached to the character. For one, I almost ended up calling her ‘The Beautiful Lady Without Teeth’, since her name is a reference to an old poem. As for the mythology, it’s sort of a combination of general witch-in-the-woods stories ala Hansel and Gretel, old Middle Aged superstition of the need to burn baby teeth (or a witch might get her hands on them and use them to control you) and Coraline. This Beldam just removes kids’ teeth instead of their eyes/souls ha ha ha.


	2. By the Prickling of My Thumbs

E. Aster Bunnymund wasn't really a bunny, no matter what the little ankle biters believed. Even so, it was rather easy to accept the moniker of Easter Bunny as a sobriquet. It kind of sounded like his birth name and when the other Guardians shortened it to just 'Bunny', it felt like a nickname. Because of this it was easy for Bunny to introduce himself as such, as he had been doing for the past several centuries. North, however, preferred that his friends called him by his birth name rather than the moniker of 'Santa Claus'.

Bunny didn't like it when people called him "Rabbit", though. He was not a rabbit. He wasn't a kangaroo either, for that matter. Cottontail was fine, Bunny couldn't really get on Jack's case about it, what with him calling the winter spirit by a variety of snow and ice -related pet names. Nicknames. Bunny had nicknames for Jack, not pet names. Pet names were for significant others. And Jack was nothing more than an annoyance at best. And that was a big, fat lie and Bunny should be able to be honest at least in his own head. He was free to call Jack his best friend in his mind, even if he'd never say it out loud in fear of said friend getting a swollen head.

It should have gone without saying anyway. Bunny wouldn't do errands for just anyone, especially something like this that just got him narked. It was nothing against the children; all the Guardians were grateful to the band of children of Burgess who'd helped them so greatly the last time Pitch had tried to rise to power. Jack had a special connection with the children in question, however, with them being his first believers and all. Because of this Jack visited Burgess as often as he could.

For all his claims to the contrary, Jack did know a thing or two about responsibility, however. Watching over winter and children's winter games was Jack's _duty_ and one the winter spirit did with great joy and dedication. And in midwinter Jack was often too busy to spend as much time with his young friends as he wanted to.

So Jack had asked Bunny to drop by in his place. Well, rather Jack had brought the matter up when the Guardians had all last gathered together. If there was one thing the Guardians could thank Pitch for, it was that just the sight of his mug made the Guardians remember to occasionally show that they appreciated each other's presence in their lives, so they had all been keeping in touch often, even if infrequently, ever since the Boogeyman's last failed attack.

Bunny had volunteered to take a peek at the kiddiwinks for Jack, a decision that had nothing to do with the brilliant smile the other had given him in response. Jack smiled all the time these days anyway, so there was no need for Bunny to jump through hoops for that expression, not that Bunny would do so anyway. No, Bunny had simply been feeling gracious the day he'd promised Jack to hop on over to Burgess when he was busy with this vagrant spirit thing.

Still, Bunny did wonder if perhaps he was going soft in his old age when a brightly grinning Jamie handed him a batch of letters. A batch of letters to Santa, to be exact. Bunny was certain his dignity was dying a screaming death somewhere.

The letter on-top caught his attention, however. He placed the other letters into a satchel and flipped the exceptional one in his hand a couple of times.

“This one Sophie’s?” he asked, musing that there was probably a drawing inside the envelope instead of a letter, since Sophie couldn’t write yet.

“What was your first clue?” Jamie asked deadpan and the two of them glanced at the bunny sticker sealing the envelope. Frankly, most of the envelope was covered in colorful bunny stickers.

Well, at least he had one loyal fan even during Christmas time, Bunny mused as he placed the last letter into his satchel. “Anything you want me to pass on to Jackie?”

Jamie attempted to both nod and shake his head at the same time, resulting in a strange roll of his head. Bunny placed a paw on top of the boy's head, stilling the movement in the guise of ruffling the boy's hair.

"I'll just tell 'im that it's his sworn duty to deliver ya sprogs at least one snow day personally before Christmas, how's that?" Bunny knew Jamie could get a bit clingy about Jack, all the Guardians did, and found it rather endearing.

Jamie's face was flushed red, from a mixture of gratitude and embarrassment, but he still managed to summon a bright grin to his face as he spoke his thanks.

It was only when compared to the other Guardians that Bunny could be considered good with kids, and even then Jack definitely had him beat. Still, he didn't mind helping Jack in these small ways, giving extra attention to the fragile little lights that meant so much to his friend. Still, Bunny never could stay still for long when outside the comfort of his Warren, so he was soon heading out to open himself a rabbit hole straight to North Pole.

Only, a voice suddenly calling out to him interrupted him the moment the hole was open. "Bunny, waaaait!"

The Pooka furrowed his brows as he turned towards Tooth, who fluttered over to him, her eyes alight with the exhilaration of a speedy flight. He wondered what the fairy was doing here for a moment, before he smirked.

"Keeping an eye on the town for Jack, were you?" Just because Bunny was doing it too, didn't mean he couldn't tease his friend about it.

Toothiana looked reasonably flustered. "Well, you know they'll start sprouting wisdom teeth any day now."

Even Bunny knew enough about kids to know that was porky. "'Within the decade' is not the same thing as 'any day', Tooth." The Pooka snorted. He then patted the side of his satchel "I was off to make a delivery to North's. You coming too?" He wasn't really surprised when the fairy answered in the affirmative, considering how often Tooth had been visiting North lately.

Bunnymund didn’t know _why_ Tooth was spending so much time with North and, frankly, he didn’t really care that much. He wasn’t the type to pry into other people’s personal business, unlike sticky beaks like Jack Frost who were full of inane questions like: ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Where are you going?’ and the ever-popular ‘Can I come with you?’

Although the last one might have been Jack wanting to spend time with him. Bunny really couldn’t tell when someone wanted to spend time with him. He usually received written invitations (normally delivered by a small fairy, elf or a messenger bird made of dream sand) for tea whenever one of his friends wanted to see him casually. He wasn’t used to someone pestering him and being in his personal space until circumstances forced him to pay attention to annoying winter spirits.

Personal space was an issue for Bunny. He didn’t like it when people got too close, which was why Tooth had learned very early into their teamwork not to probe into his mouth to check on his buckteeth or molars. Bunny was truly glad he hadn’t kicked her in a sudden bout of unjustified self-preserving instinct. He was more comfortable around his excitable teammate these days, however.

Still, Bunny couldn’t completely stop himself from flinching when Tooth’s hand suddenly struck out, grabbing his arm and yanking him into a stop. “Root!” the fairy hissed, like Bunny didn’t have as good vision as she did. Bunny’s irritation faded away quickly, however, to be replaced by confusion when he felt the prick of claws on his skin. Tooth’s hands weren’t supposed to have claws.

Bunny may not have really been a rabbit, but he had enough instincts to know when he was in the presence of a predator. The Pooka steeled his nerves and gave his companion a grateful smile that was less than sincere. “My, Tooth,” he spoke with false levity. “What sharp eyes you have.”

“All the better to see you with, my dear,” Tooth tittered and reached out to pat Bunny’s cheek.

Bunny was sure his smile wouldn’t full anyone now, but still he carried on: “My, my, lady, what long fingers you have.”

The hand around his arm tightened and the claws were more prominent now. “All the better to hold you, dearheart,” Tooth cooed and grinned, and Bunny’s eyes immediately noticed the sharp teeth in her mouth, the carnassials peeking in the corners in particular.

Bunny stretched his senses along his tunnel, sealing off the far ends in order to keep the monster trapped. Now, if only he could avoid being trapped with it himself.

“My, my, my.” Bunny released a nervous laugh as he played for more time. “What sharp teeth you have.”

Tooth smiled, and the hand on Bunny’s cheek slid over his mouth. The violet eyes flashed with something hungry. “All the better to eat you with!” The claws slid into Bunny’s mouth, nicking the corner of his mouth, and the fairy shoved Bunny into the wall behind him with surprising strength for such a lithe frame.

It felt like he had a set of knives shoved into his mouth; the fairy’s nails pricked the sensitive skin and Bunny could taste and smell blood. He almost gagged, but fought the reaction back, since he was sure the sharp nails would slice through his flesh if he jostled them.

“Now, then,” Toothiana (no, this wasn’t Toothiana, this was some type of monster) spoke and the claws around Bunny’s arm burrowed deep into his skin. “I want you to open up the portal again. I can tell you closed it.”

Bunny’s tunnels weren’t really physical, they didn’t exist in the physical world; they were magical manifestations, formed out of Bunny’s magic and distorting space in a way that altered distances between locations. During the Golden Age it had been a legend that Pooka could travel so quickly because they controlled time, when in reality it was space that they bended to their will. It was a much more malleable material to work with.

And now this fae creature had used her magic to start taking the space over. Bunny could smell it in the air, mingling with the copper smell of his own blood, dark magic. It was magic that didn't belong, in many ways.

Bunny had been prey once before. During the Fearling Wars, when the Pooka forces had been overwhelmed, Bunny had spent more time running than fighting. He'd needed to stay alive, to make sure someone was left to _remember_. The things that had happened, the culture that would not last, someone had to remember them. But there had been times when Bunny had been cornered, and Bunny had learned to not fear agony, not when it meant survival.

This monster wasn't a Fearling, but there was a similar hunger in her eyes, unreasonable, unquenchable. Said hunger fogged momentarily when curiosity became the creature when she must have noticed Bunny's expression shift away from panic.

"What are you plan-" The question was cut off by a pained scream, the monster's, when Bunny hiked his left leg up and _kicked_. Bones cracked; even though the short distance cut into the force of the blow, Bunny had enough strength for that. The blow sent the fae flying slightly to the side, like Bunny had planned, leaving Bunny's left open.

The Pooka's first step in that direction was clumsy. The claws had moved along with the monster, slicing the inside of Bunny's mouth and slashing his right cheek open. Bunny couldn't stop to measure the damage, but he knew he could run while bleeding. Fearlings could also have sharp claws and fangs.

Bunny fell onto his hands, taking off in a run down the tunnel. He moved faster when he heard the fae start laughing.

“Come back here, Bunny-sweet!” the monster sang in Toothiana's voice. “You didn’t tell me what was in the basket!”

Bunny wasn't about to let the fae follow him and so the tunnels were blocked off at a mental command from Bunny, and the Pooka was left in darkness. His blood was rushing, making his wounds bleed more profusely. Bunny slumped on the ground, holding himself up on his arms so that his bleeding muzzle was downward, the blood that was making it harder to breathe dribbling out.

He must had zoned out, dozed off, blacked out from the shock. Something caused his consciousness to slip and _she_ was there again. The witch-fairy with Toothiana's face and voice but none of her warmth. Her clawed hands were soaked in blood and her sharp predator teeth tore into the flesh she cradled almost gently in that dangerous grip. Deep red lips widened and blood-stained teeth grinned at Bunny.

"You're so delicious, little bunny," the fae cooed. "I just want to eat the rest of you."

Bunny snapped awake and he was alone. He was alone in the small, dark cavern where he'd been. However, the darkness wasn’t comforting at all; the tunnel around him felt foreign and hostile. _Her_ magic was seeping into here as Bunny's blood seeped out of his wounds. Bunny had invited her inside his magical space, and now the fae was taking it over. Unless he wanted to get caught, he’d have to get moving.

It took him a couple of attempts, there was panic at the edge of his mind and his wounds were severe, but finally he could feel the tunnel open. With skills old enough to have been forgotten and learned again, Bunny directed his magic into his shaking limbs, forcing them to stay steady enough to carry him for his run through the tunnel.

His weakening state had blurred his vision, but a cold burst of air right into his blood-soaked face told Bunny he’d come out where he’d intended, in the one place outside his Warren he could feel himself safe. He stumbled on through the snow until he couldn’t go further. And by then he had reached the circle of the welcoming magic of the Workshop, which would keep him safe from hostile intentions until one of North’s helpers got to him.

He was safe, his rational mind told himself. But he could still _feel_ the witch-fae's magic in his injuries. He still felt so hunted. Claws in his flesh, teeth aiming for his throat... Bunny shuddered and it wasn't from the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...umm...This is the first time I've tried writing horror. It's probably because of that why this is rather blatantly ripping off the story devices used in _Higurashi no Naku Koro ni_ , what with the whole light-hearted, every-day opening suddenly regressing into blood and violence.


	3. Come, High or Low; Thyself and Office Deftly Show

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually chronologically set before the previous one.

Belief. It was such a fragile yet powerful thing. It could be wiped away, or altered, and yet it held immense power over the world of the spirits. Pitch had often scoffed at this power, as if he'd change to fit the whims of _children_ , but one of the worlds he had observed made him realize that there was more to belief than simple childish impressions.

In a world where Christianity never became the dominant religion in the western world, the belief system itself was greatly different from the one in Pitch's own. Deities that would be diminished and half-forgotten pagan gods in Pitch's world were fully-powered masters in this one. The most prominent difference was that there was no Santa Claus, and no Christmas. But what truly caught Pitch's attention was that here Easter had never evolved into what it was to Pitch. There were no brightly colored eggs, no candy, and certainly no Easter Bunny.

But there was an E. Aster Bunnymund, the last of the Pookas, on this Earth as well. There was simply no snuffing out the Guardian of Hope and Life. And this Bunnymund truly showed his control over life. He gave it and took it away at his fancy, and the humans _worshipped_ him for it. They praised him for his gifts and made sacrifices to him to plead for his mercy. And the Pooka ate it up, all the while changing himself as easily as he changed the world around himself.

Pitch couldn't remember the last time the Easter Bunny had used the shape shifting the Pooka race had been granted at birth. This Bunnymund however seemed to have no particular attachment to any singular form, preferring to change his face, the color of his hair, even his sex.

It was very likely that Bunnymund had forgotten how to look like a Pooka. His forms were always human, emphasising physical attractiveness in all its forms. God of Fertility indeed, Pitch mused as he pondered on the gullibility of humans. They had no idea that their Eostre had been replaced by an alien spirit ages ago. Or perhaps there had never been any Goddess to begin with, and it had always been Bunnymund that the humans worshipped.

Pitch had been very careful about approaching this foreign Bunnymund. He would need to be absolutely certain of the spirit's willingness to negotiate before putting himself in the line of fire of a deity. Even though he was originally a regular Pooka, Bunnymund was believed to be a god by the people of his world; he would have the power that went with such a status.

It had taken Pitch so long to find a viable Pooka for his recruitment drive. Oh, the Guardian of Hope could fall, and there were many worlds where he had done more than that, crashing and burning until nothing was left but a drive to destroy. But every one of those hateful spirits could have their madness traced to a common event: the destruction of their people by the Fearlings and the Nightmare King. Some were blinded by rage, left standing in the ruins of their home while surrounded by their dead kin; others went mad from the eternity of isolation and loneliness that followed. However, all of them ultimately blamed an alternative of Pitch Black for their pain, and as such would sooner tear his head off than join him.

Then Pitch had come across the universe of the Pooka who would be Goddess to the mortals of his realm. In this last universe the Pookas weren’t noble warriors fond of sugary treats and ellipsoids. No, what Pitch had come across had been intergalactic invaders that revelled in bloodshed and spread destruction and fear with skill that almost outclassed the Fearlings. Well, that was what the Pooka race _had_ been, before Tsar Lunar XI ordered them all to be exterminated in order to preserve the lives and happiness of everyone else in the universe.

It seemed that, regardless of the universe, Bunnymund was more tenacious than the rest of his ilk, since he was the only one to escape the annihilation, fleeing to planet Earth, where he proceeded to steal the throne of one of the spirits worshipped as a deity by the humans. And he’d held on to that position for centuries, his shape shifting allowing him to be the exact likeness of how each person would perceive their god of fertility without his core changing permanently.

When Pitch opened the Sieve's portal to call in an ally for a second time, Beldam was there beside him, curiously peering into the sliver between universes. Pitch had told her he was, in a way, collecting alternatives, so the fae was visibly startled when it wasn't a rabbit that stepped through, but a red-haired beauty. However, there she was, plucking out fresh blooms from her long, curly locks, all the while telling Pitch off for calling on her at such an inconvenient time, as she had only barely managed to finish watching over spring for the year. Pitch didn’t pay her complaints any heed; she wouldn’t be here if the time table clash was truly impossible for her.

“Did you come here straight from your start-of-summer revels, or are you simply dressed up for my sake?” Pitch couldn’t help but play with the other spirit just the slightest bit. And it seemed that his companion could appreciate it as she shot a playful look at the Boogeyman.

“I could get dressed up just for you,” the woman murmured in sultry tones. “If you wanted me to.”

“No, thank you.” Those weren’t the kinds of services Pitch desired from the spirit. He signalled down a hall with a hand. “We should head over to the meeting room.” He hadn’t gone through the effort of furnishing one simply to kill time, after all.

The room was lit brighter than the dark corridors, as the purpose of the latter was to offer shadows to sneak around in, but it still remained dark enough to hold an air of secrecy. _La Belle Dame des Dents_ moved past the two larger sprits to the large rectangular table, to the first seat to the right of the one placed at the end of the table, and kept giving the new arrival measuring glances.

Pitch moved to the end of the table to take a seat and the spirit companying him followed after him, a fresh breeze passing by as her red hair darkened during the movements she made to perch on top of the long table, opposite to Beldam. The rest of the woman’s visage altered as well, in what was doubtlessly an effort to appear more appealing, until she didn't look like a 'she' at all. This new shape was a lithe body that was covered in a glittering, bright plumage. This new body got a few tittering laughs out of Beldam and Bunnymund flashed the fairy a smile full of perfectly straight teeth that seemed to glow in their brightness.

“Well, aren’t you a pretty thing?” Beldam cooed at the fae form the Pooka had taken. “I could just _eat you up_.”

Knowing Beldam, those words were meant literally, and Pitch would rather she didn’t eat the shape-shifter while he still had use for him. He wasn’t entirely sure Bunnymund understood the type of hunger in the fairy’s eyes as he replied: “If you’re into that sort of thing.”

“Behave, you two,” Pitch growled out, glaring at the two spirits. Said glare was directed mostly at Bunnymund. To think Pitch had managed to whisk into his world the one alternate of the Easter Bunny that could make him _prefer_ the presence of the original. Still, possible distasteful personal quirks aside, why would Pitch turn away from the possibility of having a god on his side? That was what Pitch told himself, at least, in the face of the exasperation said god created in him.

“We are supposed to be having a negotiation here,” Pitch told the two spirits in his presence sternly. “The fact that you accepted my invitation means you are ready to bargain.” The Nightmare King tapped his long fingers on the tabletop, dull golden eyes meeting and locking with Bunnymund’s bright yellow ones. “So, Bunnymund, what is it that you…would like?” Pitch hesitated briefly on his wording, not about to speak the word ‘desire’ in the fertility god’s presence.

Bunnymund smirked widely enough to flash his canines, and Pitch knew the other was aware of what word he had passed over.

“I suppose it all comes down to what you’re willing and able to provide,” Bunnymund amended.  
“Did you have a starting offer in mind?”

“The Guardians fight for the last descendant of the Tsar Lunar,” Pitch said, trying to read any reaction in Bunnymund’s gaze. “The man who ordered the extermination of your people.” That was a common weakness among the Bunnymunds of the different universes; the destruction of their people would always haunt them.

Or, it seemed that the phrase would need to be ‘almost always’, as this Bunnymund merely shrugged carelessly at Pitch’s suggestion. “You think to move me with revenge through a proxy?” The Pooka drummed his fingers on the back of an empty chair. “What is the going rate for godly favours in your universe?”

Beldam released an amused cackle at that, bringing the two males’ attention to herself, before exclaiming: “Virgin sacrifice!”

To Pitch it sounded absolutely ridiculous, but another look at Bunnymund revealed an expression that was the most approving one Pitch had seen on the other throughout this meeting. So, he spoke out: “Would that please you?”

Bunnymund frowned in thought for a moment before speaking: “Well, you’re not exactly asking me for luck with conception or for good crop. Those sorts of things I can take care of with a snap of my fingers.” He then gave Pitch a predatory grin. “Make it one special virgin and you’ll have your soldier.”

Pitch glowered, not about to concede without more information. “Special how exactly?”

“Virgins are like wine,” Bunnymund explained with a glimmer in his brightly-colored eyes. “The longer they go without trying sex, the more curious they become about it. And a curious lover is a very responsive one.” The Pooka spread his hands. “And then good times shall be had by all.”

Analyzing his enemies was something Pitch did at every chance he had. And as such, the first spirit who might fit Bunnymund’s description that Pitch thought about was also one of his enemies. Granted, Pitch wasn’t as adept at reading anxieties as he was at reading fears, but this particular enemy Pitch had watched for the past few years had some very deep anxieties that were easier to read than most.

“I know of one who might fit your preferences.” The Nightmare King steepled his fingers before elaborating: “I know he has been very alone, practically abandoned, for three centuries, with no one around to offer him physical comfort.” The last part was something he added in for dramatic effect.

Bunnymund seemed to appreciate it nonetheless, as he nodded his head with a pleased look on his face. “Great. You will have your godly intervention at the price of one virgin, matured for three hundred years.” The Pooka dropped down into the seat opposite of Beldam, bringing himself to even eye level with Pitch, and offered the Nightmare King his hand to shake.

Slowly, Pitch brought his own hand forth to clasp the offered appendage in a single shake. He pulled his hand back immediately after, not trusting Bunnymund for long with it.

"Well, then, if things are settled here..." Beldam murmured as she stood up from her seat. "I'm heading out to see my new hunting grounds." The fae grinned and it was all razor-sharp teeth. "I need to pick out a place to settle my web."

Pitch conceded to the suggestion and Beldam fluttered off. As soon as she was gone, Bunnymund rounded on Pitch.

“So…” the Pooka drawled. “Alone at last.”

Pitch got up from his own seat and turned around, not intending to waste his time with any version of Bunnymund, regardless how dissimilar the two were. “Yes, you can be completely alone,” the Boogeyman taunted, leaving through the doors.

Only to almost run into Bunnymund. Pitch blinked, then glanced over his shoulder into the room he’d left behind. There was no sign of a tunnel, so how in the world…

Bunnymund leaned over the distance between himself and Pitch, bringing the Boogeyman's head around to look at the Pooka. He looked different again, female once more, with dark hair and ample breasts with which she intended undoubtedly to catch Pitch’s exasperated attention.

It wasn’t that the woman’s new form wasn’t beautiful. There was no doubt about her attractiveness. Yet, the sight of her made Pitch’s skin crawl. She had dark, wavy hair and a long face, the sight of her eyes making Pitch think about a fallen Golden Age, about memories long forgotten. It nagged at him, and made him feel like there was an itch in his dark soul.

The woman slid closer until the two of them were almost completely pressed together, smiling a smile full of both wonderful and terrible promises, and Pitch wondered if perhaps he was still capable of attraction. The woman approached him with smooth movements and laid her warm (so very warm) hands on his chest. The regal face twisted into a smug smirk and the expression shattered whatever hold that face had over Pitch.

“Bunnymund,” Pitch snarled at the shape-shifter. “Get off.”

“Oh.” The woman released a masculine chuckle, for once actually using her real voice, and the sharp nails scratched at Pitch’s chest. “Don’t mind if I do.”

“I meant get off _me_.” Pitch flung the apparition away from him, the form sprawling on the floor with an undignified yelp.

“Watch, it, ya tosser!” Bunnymund snarled and the dark curls were gone, as was the regal face, much to Pitch’s relief. Instead Bunnymund finally looked like something like a Pooka, with long ears and a dark pelt. However, Pitch was rather certain that Pookas weren’t supposed to have canines or eyes that burned like heated coals.

“You watch what you turn into!” Pitch snarled back, easily finding his composure in face of something monstrous rather than heartbreakingly beautiful.

The Pooka looked thoughtful, though his eyes still gleamed a foreboding yellow. “I have to admit,” Bunnymund said finally. “I don’t usually get that reaction to my wish magic.”

Pitch continued to give the other a look of rejection and Bunnymund’s smile widened in realization. “Oh, your Bunnymund can’t do that!” The Pooka laughed and crossed his arms. “I can tell what your ideal partner looks like. Yours is apparently someone you fear more than you desire.” Bunnymund smiled and it was all teeth. “A lost love, perchance?”

Pitch hadn’t always been Pitch Black. Had that woman been someone from _before_? And what about the knowing smirk on Bunnymund’s face? Was there a form of Pitch on his world? Did Bunnymund _know_ who the woman he had turned into was?

There was no doubt about it. Bunnymund was dangerous. But hopefully Pitch could direct that danger solely towards his enemies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Bunnymund turned into Lady Pitchiner for a moment there. Whether or not she's dead in his world is still up for debate, though.


	4. I Recommend Your Pains

When the yeti burst into his office, babbling about an injured Guardian, Nicholas had been expecting it to be Jack, to be honest. Sandy was older than any other guardian and most likely the closest to immortal among them, while Bunny had survived several millennia fighting his way through any enemy the universe placed in front of him. And last Nicholas had seen of Tooth she had been down in the kitchens, instructing the yetis on the proper way to prepare sugar-free Christmas treats for diabetic children.

Jack truly was the only Guardian either not accounted for or not older than life on Earth. So, while Nicholas made his way to the infirmary in fast, long strides, he was already mentally cataloguing his knowledge on elemental spirits and on any magic to treat an ice elemental in particular. Only, such efforts were proven pointless when he laid eyes on the prone form lying in the security yeti’s arms.

The no-nonsense yeti was brisk in his movements as he moved to deposit Bunny on top the infirmary bed. Bunny seemed barely conscious, not even protesting the jostling, and his front, from right under his nose to halfway down his chest, was soaked in fresh, red blood. Nicholas’s heavy boots clunked on the wooden floor as he rushed to his friend’s side, trying to see where the wound was that was causing such bleeding, not daring to touch him before he knew for sure he wouldn’t make things worse.

Bunny was barely conscious. His green eyes were shut almost completely, with only a soft shimmer of awareness peeking from between the lids. Nicholas thought back to the training he'd received long ago and murmured soft spells to clean and heal. Only the former worked. Bunny's face had been shredded, there was really no other word for it. And, judging from how healing magic wasn't working on the injuries, the wounds had been caused by something imbued with dark magic.

The doors to the infirmary where thrown open as Toothiana entered in a flurry of feathers, minifairies and worry.

"Bunny!" the fairy shouted, immediately spotting his blood-covered form. She flew in, over the few yetis who had medical knowledge, briefly brushing Nicholas's shoulder as she dodged him, and finally stopped over Bunny to look into the other's half-aware eyes.

Except they _were_ aware all of a sudden. Aware and filled with heart-stopping fear. Nicholas barely had enough time to register that before Bunny had already lifted his leg up and kicked Toothiana.

From personal experience gained both from sparring and general mishaps, Nicholas knew Bunny could kick like a horse even on a bad day. He very well might have broken Tooth's hollow hummingbird bones if Toothiana hadn't also been a warrior of renown. She had been far more alert to Bunny's movements than Nicholas had been and caught the leg coming at her in her strong hands.

While Tooth ordered the yetis standing around to come over and hold the injured Pooka down, Nicholas focused on his friend's face again. Kicking Tooth hadn't been something Bunny did on accident, because he was startled. There had been intent there and now the Easter Bunny was disappointed over having missed his target.

"Bunny." Tooth's voice was gentle when she addressed the prone Guardian. "It's me, Tooth, I'm not going to hurt you." The purple eyes gave Nicholas a meaningful look and the Guardian of Wonder came over to grab Bunny's head between his large hands. His hold here would be better than the clawed hands of a yeti and, furthermore, he could use his magic to numb Bunny's pain. Nicholas held Bunny's head carefully but securely, in case the Pooka went into a fit once Toothiana returned with a needle and thread. They couldn't have any sudden movements disrupting Tooth's needlework.

Nicholas tilted Bunny's head to the left, presenting the torn right side to Toothiana. From this close, Nicholas could clearly see the fear creeping back into Bunny's eyes when Toothiana came back with the sharp, thin needle and thread.

"Bunny is safe here," Nicholas spoke, his voice low and gravelly with emotion. It was unnerving to see his friend brought to this. "Here, you are among friends."

Bunny took quick, shivering breaths, trying to calm his body. He stiffened noticeably when Toothiana's fingers brushed over his mutilated face, even though her touch was feather-light. Bunny's breath came out wet-sounding, his exhales making the thick blood on his lips bubble and dribble onto the bed under his head. His wounds were still bleeding profusely, most likely due to the adrenaline, and his blood was quickly soaking the white sheets.

The green eyes were dimming as the Pooka's breathing finally evened out. Bunny's gaze grew distant as his consciousness retreated into someplace with none of the recent trauma. It was better that way, all things considered. He wouldn’t be scared stiff by the very person working to heal his wounds for one.

“How is damage?” Nicholas asked Tooth, now that he didn’t have to focus completely on Bunny.

Tooth was frowning in concentration as she worked the needle carefully through Bunny’s skin. “The entire side of his face has been cut open, but it’s a clean cut so I can stitch it shut.” The steady expression wavered, although Tooth's hands stayed steady. "His tongue is gone. Someone cut it out, North."

Nicholas' thumb gently rubbed the ridge of Bunny's nose, trying to offer his friend comfort even when he wouldn't be aware of it. He gave Toothiana a considering look, before speaking: "How about his teeth?"

That startled a laugh out of the fairy, although there was a suspiciously sob-like quality to it. Still, Toothiana's voice grew in strength as she answered: "They're all there. Every single one of those strong teeth, so that's a plus."

The rest of the stitching went speedily, Toothiana confidently sewing her friend's face back into a semblance of what it once was. She also bandaged the muzzle, to let the fabric absorb the last of the bleeding. Next Toothiana treated Bunny's arm, which had long slashes on it, like something with claws had tried to grab him.

When Toothiana was done and the blood was wiped off, Bunny did actually look like himself again. Although there still was a vulnerability about their friend now that made them not want to rouse him from whatever peaceful state he had achieved. But they needed to know what had done this, so Nicholas set about coaxing Bunny back into consciousness.

 

* * *

 

Bunny felt sick. He was certain the only reason he wasn't in unspeakable pain was because he'd gone numb. His mind was clouded in a magically induced fog and he almost fell flat on his face when North told him to follow him and Tooth to the den. Bunny had been so eager to get out of the infirmary that smelled like his own blood that he'd tripped over his own feet, falling into Tooth, who'd been hovering nearby in worry.

He flinched. He tried not to, but he couldn't fight the reaction when Tooth's hand wrapped around his arm to prop him up, close to bandaged wounds Bunny was very aware of.

Bunny tried to apologise, but the bandages on his face made opening his mouth impossible, and there was nothing in his mouth to form the words with. A confused sound escaped from his throat and North and Tooth propped him up from different sides to guide him along.

North said he'd been attacked, and that it would be helpful if he could think back on what it was that had put him in such bad shape. So Bunny let his friends make sure his legs kept walking and used his own faculties to try to recall what had happened before he'd fallen into the snow at North Pole.

When they made it inside the comforting den, Bunny was lowered onto a couch and given a notepad and a pen. Bunny frowned at the items in his hands, because they kept _shaking_.

"You were attacked with dark magic," North spoke, clearly having examined him for magical attack. "Is putting your core off balance."

Dark magic...Bunny remembered the creature, remembered mistaking Toothiana for her imposter several times now at the Pole.

Some warrior he was. He hadn't sensed the presence of an enemy until he'd already been tagged. And he'd stayed in a dangerous situation, trying to figure out what he was facing, until it had become nearly impossible to escape. His instincts had kicked in only after he'd been injured.

To make matters worse, he still didn't know what the Tooth lookalike was. A doppelganger? A shape-shifter? A conjured creature or something that existed on Earth?

He'd sensed fairy magic. That was how the monster had known the tunnel dimension had been sealed off the moment Bunny did it. But there had been something witch-like about the creature as well. The way the injuries she'd left on Bunny still burned was a clear sign.

Bunny wrote a word on the pad and showed it to his friends. Toothiana's eyes widened while North frowned deeply.

"Fae-witch?" Toothiana read out loud. "One or the other or both?"

Bunny lifted his hand horizontally and tilted it. Something somewhere around that definition.

That was when arctic wind blew in through the window, blowing it open and bringing Jack Frost with it. Or, rather, Jack brought the wind and cold with him since he seemed to almost glow with power as he rushed through the den to the couch Aster was sitting on.

"Windows not supposed to open that way," North mumbled to the side. "Boy broke the hinges."

"Forget about the hinges!" Jack snapped as he reached out towards Bunny, hands hovering only inches away. From this close, Bunny could clearly see the winter magic making Jack's eyes glow an even brighter blue than was normal. Then the frost spirit was grabbing him with hands that were almost so cold they burned. Bunny didn’t mind that, however, as he simply pressed his face into Jack’s neck, under his chin. He felt so incredibly safe here, held tightly by this powerful being.

It was only because he was worried he might start purring that Bunny pulled back from Jack's embrace. It would have been fine if Pookas simply gritted their teeth in contentment like Earth rabbits did, but unfortunately Pooka throats were built for loud, thrumming purring that everyone in the room would have been able to hear.

Still, Jack's hands stayed on him, and it was comforting to have his friend so close when he was so hurt. Although now there was something painful in Jack's eyes.

"Why aren't you talking?" the frost spirit asked and Bunny lowered his eyes away from Jack's expressive face when Toothiana leaned over to explain the nature of Bunny's injury in low tones. Bunny curled up on the couch, lifting his knees to give himself comfort when Jack's hands retreated in horror.

"Bunny," North's steady voice was a relief as it rolled over Tooth's soft tones and Jack's terrified gasps. "We need to know more. Where were you attacked?"

It would be a lot easier to tell the other Guardians what he knew if he had Sandy’s gift for wordless expression, Bunny thought. It was hard not to notice the irony of the most antisocial of the Guardians wishing he _could_ speak.

Oh, it was sinking in _right now_. He didn’t have a tongue. He didn’t have a tongue, because some twisted mixture of a witch and fairy had torn it out and eaten it. He'd had a vision of it happening. And even if it was a good thing that it hadn't become a spell ingredient, it was still a loss. _His tongue had been eaten by a witch._

There were hands grasping his head now, delivering it to between his knees. Skinny arms wrapped around him and a low voice mumbled: “Breathe, Bunny, breathe, don’t panic.”

Well, this was embarrassing. He was having an actual panic attack and Jack Frost was coaxing him out of it. Just don’t start laughing hysterically at your own humiliation, Bunny told himself sternly, because that would only make things worse.

Bunny lifted his arms and wrapped them around the cool body. It was nice, having something solid to cling to, something outside himself.

"Are you okay now, Bunny?" Jack's voice came right by Bunny's ear and even though Bunny would have wanted to stay like this a while longer, he nodded. Jack pulled back, but his hands kept petting Bunny's head and shoulders and that was a relief too, that Jack didn't balk at touching him even when he wasn't breaking down. Even though he'd been so utterly mutilated.

It took Bunny a moment to find his pen between the couch cushions, and Tooth presented him with the notepad. He had no idea how long it had been since the creature had attacked him. She might very well have escaped from the cavern he left her in by now. He wrote quickly, realizing just how much time he had been wasting falling unconscious and falling apart.

"You left it underground at Burgess?" Toothiana read out loud, eyes widening. "What was it doing at Burgess?"

Jack's hands were clenching Bunny's fur. The winter spirit was undoubtedly worried about his friends. Bunny shook his head at Toothiana. He had no idea what the lookalike had been doing there. Maybe she'd just been waiting to ambush a Guardian. But in that case, her intended victim might have been someone else entirely.

Bunny's hands grabbed Jack's hoodie without any conscious thought about doing such a thing. Still, he was shaking, and pressing himself against Jack's cool body seemed to help.

Jack didn’t hug him back this time, but the hands on him were clenching and unclenching on his fur. It was like Jack was indecisive about something.

"Jack." Tooth's voice was stern and Bunny looked over to her at the same time Jack turned. Her mouth was set into a firm line and Bunny could recognize his friend's game face from anywhere. "You stay with Bunny, while North and I go see what's happening in Burgess."

Jack's hands immediately relaxed, moving to cradle Bunny's injured head. "He seems feverish."

"Dark magic in wounds makes it difficult to heal," North explained, his large hand briefly lifting to ruffle Bunny's head in a comforting gesture. "Make sure stubborn Bunny rests."

"And fill in Sandy when he gets here," Toothiana added. "My girls are having a harder time getting a hold of him than they had with finding you."

"That's because there's always at least one following me around already," Jack replied easily, and his voice rumbled nicely in the chest Bunny had pressed his face against. He barely registered the other two Guardians leaving. It was hard to focus in general with the dark magic poisoning his blood.

"Hey, Bunny." Jack's hands moved to his shoulders and shook him ever so slightly. "Don't fall asleep just yet. Let's get you to a bedroom first."

That sounded like a good idea, Bunny decided as he allowed Jack to pull him up from the couch. His magical core was basically pure light magic, so it was having a pretty bad reaction to being introduced to dark magic. He'd be out like a light any minute now and he'd really rather zonk out in private rather than out here where any yeti or elf could see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently doped-up Bunny gets clingy. We'll see what Jack thinks about that later on.
> 
> And so the Guardians decided to try the "Let's Split Up, Gang!" technique. We'll also see how that goes later on. *evil laughter*


	5. He Will Not Be Commanded

It only took Beldam some hours to return to the dark citadel underground. While it was nice to have someone else around to distract Bunnymund from poking at the Nightmares around the lair, Pitch couldn't help but wonder what had brought the fae back so soon. As soon as Beldam was close enough, Pitch noticed the crusted blood beneath Beldam’s fingers.

“Oh, don’t tell me you ate a child already.” Pitch grimaced. “That’ll have the Guardians rushing us in moments.”

“I wasn’t even seen by the chicklets,” Beldam assured Pitch, flicking her long fingers. “I ran into something much more delicious.”

“What could that have possibly been?” Pitch didn’t think there was much anything witches enjoyed more than the taste of children.

“A Guardian.” Beldam sneered, her sharp teeth gleaming. “I only got a piece of him, but he was delicious.”

“Well, what’s left of him is going straight to his friends to tell about us!” Bunnymund snapped, dark fur growing darker and somehow murkier as he started to loom over the fae. “You should have made sure he didn’t get away!”

“I took his tongue,” Beldam said and Bunnymund paused. “He won’t sing any tales, and he has no idea what I am and what I was doing. The Guardians can suspect, but they won’t know.”

“That is true,” Pitch muttered as he considered his options. “Still, we’re going to have to speed up the timetable.” The Boogeyman started to walk out of the room. “I’m summoning the Yule Goat now.”

“Oh?” Bunnymund looked approving as he hurried to keep step with Pitch. “That’s a fine choice, much better than the other ones.”

Beldam huffed behind them and then Pitch felt the soft patter of fairy feet. “Don’t just leave me behind so casually!”

Pitch had found the perfect Santa Claus for his plans on Eostre’s world. On that version of Earth, Christianity had never spread as wide as it had on Pitch’s own, coloring the humans’ notions on what the mystical should be like. It was because of this that Bunnymund became ‘Eostre’ instead of ‘Easter Bunny’, and, similarly, Santa Claus was never called such.

It was actually Eostre himself who endorsed Pitch’s choice. If the fertility god hadn’t been so excited about getting Pitch’s plot moving ahead, Pitch would have been suspicious of his motives. As things stood, however, it was rather blatant that the Pooka simply wished to get to the part where he got his ‘virgin sacrifice’.

The figure Pitch summoned through the portal was larger than the Dimensional Sieve, which was why it was so very fortunate that the Sieve bended both time and space. Size was no issue, nor was time. The spirit was also one whose legends had existed on Pitch’s own, before the faith of humans, children especially, shifted. Pitch wasn’t sure if the Nuuttipukki of his world had simply faded away or become a part of Santa Claus. This Nuuttipukki, however, was strong and real and solid, and would fit into Pitch’s plans easily.

The Yule Goat was a spirit shaman with long, curved horns and his face was hidden behind a mask made out of a goat skull. However, Pitch could very clearly see the red glowing embers in the eye sockets that stood for the Yule Goat's eyes. The large being seemed too large for the room, yet he also gave the impression of having plenty of room to move in.

Demonic creatures didn't follow the rules of physics. They were not of the physical realm so it couldn't limit them. However, they often had different limitations set on them, and if the Yule Goat was anything like the Nuuttipukki, his limitation was that he could only touch _misbehaving_ children.

There were many levels of misbehaviour, however. And the promise of a new world held the promise of the demon being capable of breaking his shackles on that world.

The Yule Goat wasn't evil or predatory or dark like La Bella Dame des Dents or Eostre Bunnymund; he simply had a duty to carry out. A duty that the Guardians of Childhood went against with everything they stood for.

"They _protect_ children from anything that might teach them," Pitch told the demon who seemed both mindless and infinitely aware. "They give them gifts instead of corrective punishment. They worship children instead of teaching them."

It was easy, so incredibly easy. That was all Pitch had to say for the Yule Goat to nod his acquiescence. That was all he needed for that monstrous voice to growl out: "I will bring your order to these children. Fear will teach them." And with every breath the monster summoned a cold mist, very much a spirit of winter, even thought his eyes burned with heated fire.

"Beldam." Pitch turned to the fae in question, who was giving the demon shaman wary looks. "Take Yule Goat with you back to Burgess. I have no doubt you will be receiving visitors." The Boogeyman gave her a smile that was all teeth. "Give them a proper welcome."

Beldam mirrored his expression before turning back to Yule Goat. "You heard the boss man, big guy. You're with me." With that the feathered witch turned around the fluttered out of the room.

Yule Goat followed her with movements that seemed to both crawl and move by quickly. The large pelt serving as Yule Goat's cape covered his entire body, making it difficult to determine its shape but Pitch still got the impression that the creature was moving on four feet even as the hem of the cape slid along the floor in a way that gave the impression of there being no legs or feet at all under it. And in the doorway the shaman was simultaneously too large to fit through the door while also slipping through without having to so much as bend down.

It was all really rather unnerving, Pitch decided before a voice coming from way too close suddenly spoke into his ear: "I think Nuutti likes you."

Pitch whirled around, taking a long step further away from Bunnymund and glaring. He made a show of straightening his robes as he pointedly looked back away from the Pooka. “I used to do something similar to his job, long ago.” The Boogeyman sneered. “I taught humans what was to be feared.”

“Until you thought their fear should be your sustenance rather than their savior,” Bunnymund spoke and Pitch glowered at the Pooka suspiciously. The other simply shrugged. “It’s not such an uncommon occurrence, for power to corrupt.”

“That thing,” Pitch spoke, indicating the direction Yule Goat had vanished into. “You’re on good terms with that thing?” The Nightmare King queried. “He’s more frightening than any Nightmare or Fearling.”

“There isn’t much that can scare me.” Bunnymund flicked an ear flippantly. “Can’t your powers tell you that?”

“Actually,” Pitch spoke, just about having had enough of the smugness of the Pooka. “My powers tell me quite the bit about what you fear.” Pitch sneered at the challenge on the other’s face. “The Yule Goat isn’t frightening to you, but a man is.”

“Yes, there’s one man in the entire universe I’m scared of.” Bunnymund shrugged, like it was meaningless. “And he doesn’t exist in this one.” Perhaps it was meaningless here and now, then.

"Well, then." A slow grin spread to Pitch's lips. "If you truly fear nothing, there is someone I want you to take care of for me." Yes, the very reason Pitch had wanted a god on his side in the first place.

“I know what you’re getting at,” Bunny answered easily, grinning widely at Pitch. “Consider it taken care of. Just remember my reward.”

“I’ll put the best man on the job,” Pitch assured the Pooka, who then skipped off into the shadows and vanished. Pitch watched his departure carefully, but still couldn’t tell whether Bunnymund was using tunnels or some other method of transportation.

 

* * *

 

Sandy was on his usual rounds, peacefully drifting around houses and watching over children’s sleep, when he spotted the Nightmare.

It took Sandy only a glance to tell the Nightmare was unusual. Usually Nightmares slipped away as soon as they were seen for what they were, still weak and uninfluential, but this one was staying out, standing on a rooftop watching Sandy with intelligent and observant eyes. The Nightmare wasn't like its ilk, it was far too substantial to be a mere bad dream. It was simply something that looked like a Nightmare. Sandy attacked.

The creature leaped over the attack, over Sandy and, as the Sandman whirled around to face his opponent, galloped into the night.

Sandy took off after the creature, determined to catch it and see just what was so different about it. The chase took him down what seemed like every street of the city, before the Nightmare arrived at a park in the shadow of the surrounding buildings. The streetlamps beside the park path flickered out as the Nightmare stomped past them and Sandy lashed out with a sand whip to catch a hold of the fleeing Nightmare.

Again, the Nightmare leaped to dodge the attack, landing on top of the roof of a public bathroom. The shining golden eyes seemed to gloat. Sandy floated upwards to meet the creature eye-to-eye and then the creature shifted right in front of the Sandman's eyes.

Now the stranger looked the very visage of Pitch Black, but Sandy knew his old enemy well enough to tell him apart from an imposter. He knew for a fact that while Pitch could sink into shadows, his form wasn't really so malleable as to manage shape-shifting.

"Were you expecting the Boogeyman?" the faker crooned with Pitch's voice. Sandy frowned.

The darkness of the park wasn't merely that of the night, and while Pitch Black was the only spirit Sandy knew to control darkness itself, this one was something different entirely. Nevertheless, golden dreamsand swirled and coiled, ready for battle. The message in the gesture was clear.

_Come and face me._

The Pitch lookalike grinned with his sharp teeth. "Let's dance, dream smith."

Sandy lashed out, but once again his opponent dodged. Sandy's second whip stuck out higher than the first, having expected the other to jump to avoid the first blow. He hadn't expected the other to grow _wings_ and flutter out of reach in the shape of a bird, however.

Flying after his foe, Sandy used his whips to force the bird to fly lower, until the shifter landed and morphed into a larger form. He looked like a bipedal wolf now, with sharp teeth and long, sharp claws. Sandy lashed out with a whip.

The shifter lifted a hand, seeming to focus intently, and the golden sand blackened. Sandy flinched, pulling his sand out of the range of influence, and stopped to consider his opponent. At first he thought the shape-shifter had Pitch's power to corrupt his sand, until he noticed that the darkened sand had fallen to the ground, listless.

The shifter wasn't turning Sandy's sand black, corrupting it. The shifter was putting out its light, killing it.

Not about to be intimidated, Sandy made sure to keep his strikes quick, swiping at the shifter too quickly for the other to try to get at his sand if he wanted to avoid getting hit. Indeed, the shifter chose to retreat, keep away and dodge from the path of Sandy's fierce attacks, scattering magic to the park around them.

When the flora started to attack Sandy, the former wishing star was undaunted. He flew out of the path of strangling vines and swiftly ducked snapping branches, all the while keeping his opponent moving.

The plants continued to grow, into a forest and into such a thick cover that no light could pierce through. The only sources of light in the dome of plantlife were soon Sandy and his sand, and the gleaming yellow eyes of the strange enemy.

Sandy was used to working in the dark, so it was no hindrance to him, and he managed to clip his opponent on the shoulder with his whip, sending the still-shifting form falling into the thickening grass. Long ears lifted a moment before a familiar face glowered at Sandy with yellow eyes.

Bunny.

The hesitation cost him dearly, because just when he froze at the sight of his oldest friend, a flower as dark as the night bloomed right underneath him and swallowed him whole.

Eostre pulled himself upward, standing up and shaking out his fur. He had hoped his base form was enough like his counterpart to make the Sandman hesitate for the briefest moments, just enough for his light-eating plant to trap the dream maker. The gamble had paid off and the spring god coaxed the plant's roots to let got of the soil and crawl into his arms. The flower was bloated with its prey and carrying it would be troublesome. Eostre would need to find a place to leave the flower, where it wouldn't wither away like it would in Pitch's lair.

So troublesome, but the prize would be well worth it. Tucking the flower under an arm, Eostre hopped off, all the while humming a nursery rhyme from his homeworld.

"Golden man, golden man,  
ever brave, ever just, ever strong.  
Autumn man, autumn man,  
with your sword, fix what's wrong."

Both the spring god and his prey vanished into the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles*


	6. Open, Locks, Whoever Knocks

"We need to drop by Punjam Hy Loo," Toothiana spoke out when Nicholas was stocking up on snow globes.

The former bandit paused for a moment, before proceeding to slip the globes into his softly lined pockets. "How come?"

"Bunny didn't flinch from Jack's touch," Toothiana answered. The words were heavy with meaning, but said meaning escaped Nicholas for the moment.

"Yes, I noticed he liked Jack-touches," Nicholas hedged. Perhaps Toothiana was noticing the closeness between the two now that Bunny's inhibitions had been lowered.

Only Toothiana's expression stayed severe, too serious to be speaking of friends' getting cosy. "He didn't mind having you close either." Toothiana crossed her arms to grip her own arms, a mixture of a stern pose as well as a self-comforting hug. "He only panicked when I got near, and he told us he was attacked by some kind of fairy."

Nicholas hadn't given the event in the infirmary much thought when it had happened; he'd simply thought Bunny had been caught up in a lack of mental equilibrium that had him seeing enemies everywhere. But then there had been that flinch in the hallway...

"Do you have something that could help?" Nicholas knew fairy magic could take the edge off from injuries, dulling the pain and shock. Maybe it could help Bunny get over whatever mental injury his physical ones had brought.

Toothiana's expression didn't have her looking like she was looking to _heal_ , however. "I have my sword," the warrior queen spoke stonily. "Whatever the thing was that attacked Bunny, it made him _scared_ of me. I won't let that slide."

Nicholas nodded his head once. "Right."

There was no mistaking the murderous intent in Tooth's voice. Nicholas himself had seen the physical and mental state Bunny had been in when he'd been brought in. This monster had made Bunny fear one of his friends, who were supposed to be a form of comfort and good memories. Toothiana would not let this go unpunished.

They were both feeling determined, and perhaps even a touch vengeful. It didn't take them long to get to Burgess, even with the detour, but the day was still swiftly turning into night in the area as they scouted around for anything suspicious.

Some ways into the woods leading out of the town, the pair found a narrow crevice between two large, pure white rocks. It didn't look anything like a rabbit hole, but the magic did feel similar in shape to one of Bunny's entryways. The cavern would lead into a warped space, no doubt the underground pocket dimension Bunny had attempted to seal his assailant inside of.

"Do you think the creature made it out?" Nicholas asked and Toothiana shook her head.

"The air is heavy with magic. The creature could leave but decides not to."

There was an additional incantation on the entrance, explaining its altered shape. There was magic to enforce curiosity, to lure unsuspecting prey in. Yet the entrance was so small that an adult couldn't fit through. It was clearly a child trap.

"I can squeeze through, even though it'll be a tight fit," Toothiana commented after observing the entryway to her satisfaction. She turned to Nicholas. "Do you have a way to get through here?"

"Well," Nicholas gestured to the hole. "Is very much like chimney, technically."

Toothiana smirked. "Technically."

No one really questioned _how_ Santa Claus got through chimneys. That was good for situations like this.

 

* * *

 

When Jack had found out that Bunny had been attacked near Burgess, he'd been torn. Jamie and Bunny were both important to him. He wanted to catch this thing, to protect the children and to avenge Bunny. But Bunny was hurting; he was hope and life, so dark magic was especially harmful to him. Jack couldn't leave him to suffer alone.

Which was why he'd been so grateful when he'd been told to stay behind. Between two things so near his heart, it was better to have the choice taken away from him. Especially since Jack knew he could trust Tooth and North to do whatever they could to make sure the kids at Burgess were safe.

As such, Jack was able to fully focus on tending to Bunny. Tooth had explained Bunny's condition to him in hushed whispers. She'd told Jack what someone had taken from the Pooka and how he was possibly hallucinating, if the Easter Bunny's unprovoked attack on Tooth was any indication.

Jack couldn't help but wonder who Bunny saw in Jack's place, to cling to him so desperately. Jack knew he'd do anything to protect Bunny, but he didn't think Bunny knew that.

After helping Bunny get into bed, Jack brushed a hand through the thin fur on the Pooka's forehead. Bunny felt feverish. Jack, struck with a sudden need for privacy, checked the room for interlopers. His check revealed one elf with a tie-dyed hat, which Jack promptly threw out of the room.

Jack then climbed into the bed and pressed himself against Bunny's back, bringing one arm around the Pooka's shoulder so that he could grab a comforting hold of the ruff on his friend's chest. His other arm was moved to cradle Bunny's head. his hand laid palm-down on the other's heated forehead. Jack willed coolness to slip out of that hand to soothe Bunny's discomfort.

"If I meet whoever did this to you..." Jack murmured softly against the back of his friend's neck. "I'll make sure they never melt again after I'm through with them."

 

* * *

 

 _Der Sandmann_ had begun life as a song, sung by parents to their small children at bedtime. Lullabies often held grim messaged in their deceptively lulling melodies, even in Eostre’s world – which he had come to understand differed greatly from his new allies’ homes – so it was really no surprise. Then the song morphed, becoming a rhyme children recited during play.

It was such a little thing, really, for parents to bypass the song entirely when marching older children into bed. It was so much simpler to just say: "The Sandman will take your eyes if he sees them open." Naive, superstitious children would then clench their eyes shut tightly, until their muscles relaxed in sleep.

From a harmless song into something children believed in, _Der Sandmann_ became something very real.

For every monster like the Yule Goat, a slave to his own traditions, there was a creature like _Der Sandmann_ , completely bereft of any sense of rhyme or reason in everything he did. No one knew what he had against people being awake at night, especially considering how he couldn't touch or even see the people who were deeply asleep. Eostre personally thought the diminutive man simply hated other people so much that throwing itchy sand in everyone else's faces was a downright mild reaction to social situations.

As for the unnerving habit of clawing out people's eyes, well, Sandmann's lullaby said that it was a lesson; if children didn't appreciate their eyes enough to let them rest, they didn't deserve to have them. But that didn't explain the way Sandmann magically crystallized the eyes he stole and hoarded them like a stamp collector. It was a fixation, plain and simple.

“Such pretty eyes,” were the first words Sandmann spoke to Eostre once the spirit had finished his discussion with Pitch. The shimmering, shifting body leaned over and Eostre could sense no attraction, simply fixation. “It’s like they’re lit up from the inside.”

“It’s magic,” Eostre said shortly, pulling away from the other spirit, glancing briefly at Pitch to gauge the other’s reaction. It was very likely that Pitch Black had chosen at least one ally with no sex drive just to make sure he had someone around that Eostre couldn’t read.

Honestly. The spring god hadn’t come back from his ‘errand’ just so that he could be told that Pitch _still_ didn’t have the prize he’d promised Eostre. Instead, the Boogeyman was planning on sending a freshly crossed-over spirit to go fetch Jack Frost.

Naturally Eostre offered to accompany Sandmann on his journey to the North Pole. Pitch was rather quick to agree to it, still apparently not comfortable with being alone with Eostre. Eostre had smirked and petted a passing Nightmare before leading the Sandmann through the shadows to where they needed to go.

A tunnel of shadows. Something like that could never open a direct path to a place as full of light as Santa’s Workshop. So the two spirits had left the tunnel outside the workshop, where Eostre had been promptly repelled by the protective wards around the Guardian Lair.

“Shite!” Eostre hissed as his fur stood on end from the magical shock. He hurriedly hopped further away from the wards. Sandmann followed him, but not as speedily. Eostre was trying to understand why Sandmann was so important for this mission.

“The wards recognize dark spirits,” Eostre mumbled as he twitched his ears. “You’re more on the neutral, aren’t you?”

Sandmann gestured with his hand to signal it was really more a matter of perspective. Then his form began to shimmer and split apart.

“Oh,” Eostre gasped when he realized what type of magic would help the other at least get inside. “Yes, I see how that might work.” Eostre doubted there was any way _he_ could get in while the master of this house was still spiritually strong. The wards recognized him to be an enemy due to the power inside him.

He scowled to himself as he let Sandmann focus on his magic, wandering off to investigate the Workshop from afar. If he was careful, he might find a spot where the protection wasn't as potent. Just because he knew how things stood didn’t mean he had to just lie down and take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a breather chapter after all that intense stuff that's been going on. Next time you'll all get to find out more about Sandmann.


	7. And Now About the Cauldron Sing

Sandmann really didn't like people. They were noisy and broke the beautiful tranquility of night time. They lit lights to splinter the darkness and everything about them, from their annoying voices to their stomping feet, was designed to shatter the quiet. Truly it would be better if they just slept through their nights, like they were supposed to.

Humans were daytime creatures anyway. They couldn't see in the dark and the silence of night was frightening to their sensitive nerves. So why not sleep through the night and leave the darkness to creatures who could appreciate it for what it was?

Sandmann himself didn't particularly care for daylight, so the humans could have that. It was hard to mind your own business when your own body reflected any light that shone on it. This was because Sandmann wasn't built quite like other creatures; his entire body consisted of a shimmering silver substance that resembled sand. It was flaky and refused to stay in a solid shape, tipping over and spilling everywhere.

Spirits had natures to them, ones they couldn't change. While his physical form was malleable, Sandmann knew he couldn't change what he was at his core; he was a hunter. All that he didn't like people, he did like preying on them and collecting trophies from them. And a hunter was always looking for new hunting grounds.

That was basically what Pitch's offer to Sandmann amounted to. In return for his allegiance, Pitch would allow Sandmann to hunt on his territory. It was a rather simple deal and a good one to boot. Sandmann has accepted.

The straightforwardness vanished soon after Sandmann crossed over, however. Pitch's first request of him was to retrieve a person. People were vile, regardless if they were spirits or mortals. And he had to retrieve this particular spirit as a favor for the rabbit-shaped one, who had the magical eyes Sandmann wasn't allowed to collect.

He would simply have to wait to have his fun elsewhere, Sandmann mused as his shape split. It was a power that was deeply tied into his nonsolid form, and most likely the Sandman of this world could do it too, whatever the differences of dreamsand versus moonsand were. Still, the split off version of him was more magic than sand, less 'real' in a concrete sense, and could therefore slip right past anything that might have stopped the more physical form of Sandmann entering the Workshop.

Sandmann was relieved when the spring god with him skipped off into the snow to investigate the area further. Sandmann didn't prefer to leave his original body in the company of anyone while his mind was occupying a makeshift copy. He knew Eostre Bunnymund wasn't chaotic enough of a spirit to _harm_ his form, - or even capable of it, for what could you do to harm _sand_ \- but he didn't trust the other not to try to play some sort of prank.

Sandmann slid into the large dwelling, stretching his magic to find alert minds. He was looking for a mind attached to strong magic, perhaps with a touch of worry for his friends. The ghostly body moved along through the area, circling around through rooms with no one conscious inside them. Finally he came to a bedroom that contained a consciousness that stood apart from the rest.

He slid partially inside, far enough to see and hear but not enough to be spotted. The white-haired, human-shaped spirit was no doubt Jack Frost, especially considering how his aura stung like frost in a winter morn.

"Don't fall back asleep," Jack Frost spoke in a surprisingly deep voice for his lithe frame. "I don't want you freaking out on me when I get back."

There was no response from the dimmer consciousness lying on the bed. The other was barely awake, but showed no signs of nodding off unexpectedly.

"Stop giving me the stink-eye." Jack Frost made his way to the door. "I'll be right back." The winter spirit left the room, closing the door after himself.

He should probably follow the other spirit, Sandmann mused. But the hallways were bound to be more crowded and Jack Frost had said he'd be returning shortly. Instead Sandmann drifted over to the bed, peering down at the barely conscious Guardian, whom Frost had left behind. This mind was foggy with illness, but gaining awareness with each passing moment. This was also clear from the green eyes that kept growing brighter, a pure color without a hint of brown.

Those eyes were such a rare treasure, how was Sandmann supposed to resist? His favorite color might have been blue but these would look nice in his collection as well.

"Come on, _liebling_ ," the night spirit cooed as his long fingers reached for the bandaged face. "Open those eyes so I can pluck them out properly."

His hand was captured in a startlingly strong grip. Sandmann's breath hitched when he realized that his prey wasn't as helpless as he'd seemed. The Easter Bunny's eyes blazed with newly awakened determination and the temporary spectral body of Sandmann couldn't overpower him even in this weakened state.

Of course, things had to go and get worse after that.

A chill was permeating the room, signalling the return of Jack Frost. The atmosphere, however, was not nearly as cold as the winter spirit's voice was when he spoke: "Get away from him."

Sandmann retreated, the Easter Bunny letting him go easily now that there was backup present. The night spirit lifted his hands in a placating gesture. "I was merely having a look."

"You were about to _take_ from him," Jack Frost hissed, and his breath frosted over in the room. "Not again."

Sandmann wasn't fast enough to stop the winter spirit from swinging his shepherd's crook staff, slamming into his chest. He hadn't expected the blow to do much, at any matter; his magically built scout was only vaguely physical. But then Sandmann realized that the boy had managed to _freeze_ his form. His form of pure magic was frozen solid and he could only watch as the enraged spirit drew his staff back and stuck again.

There was the sound of ice shattering in a distant part of Sandmann's mind as the spirit hissed from sudden spiritual pain. He was back in his sand body and he suspected he might have let out some other sounds of pain because suddenly Eostre was there beside him, looking thoroughly displeased.

"Did you make any progress?" the Pooka asked, although his tone hinted that he might know the answer already.

"Hardly," Sandmann snapped and cussed in German. "I've had it with this cold weather. My sand is freezing together." He was starting to feel more solid with each moment.

Eostre released a disgusted sound. "Useless."

Sandmann glowered at his unwanted company. "You haven't made it inside either."

"Yes, well, I actually have a reason for that." Eostre glowered at the Workshop in the distance. "To think Pitch gathered so many of us and only I have gotten results."

"Not all of us can be fear mongers," Sandmann mumbled under his breath. However, he wasn't quiet enough for the other's long ears to not catch the words. The Pooka whirled around on him, his somewhat rabbit-like visage morphing into a longer canine muzzle as the yellow eyes turned into nothing more than burning flames of pure power.

"I am life!" Eostre roared in a voice that was more beast than human. "I am spring and rebirth! My people _love me_!"

"I'm sure they do." Sandmann slid backwards, further away from the snarling and snapping spirit. He'd rather not start a brawl with a god in these conditions, no matter how self-entitled. "But I saw the Easter Bunny, even if briefly. His _licht_ was pure, yours is corrupt."

The Pooka stopped growling, straightening his back from the bestial slouch he'd fallen into. "I beg your pardon?"

"Is it a secret, I wonder?" Sandmann taunted the other. "Does Pitch Black know?"

"Pitch knows and suspects what he does, I'm not a mind reader," Eostre growled out threateningly. "I doubt you telling him would surprise him."

"I could still confirm his suspicions." No doubt the similar magical cores between the two would have clued them both in on the connection. Still, he suspected he had at least minor sway on the other now. To test it out he spoke in a louder voice: "Get us out of here."

"Fine." There was darkness and the freezing cold retreated, even if only somewhat. "I might have found a different way inside, but I don't trust you not to botch it up."

Sandmann wondered who Eostre was going to try to get to use the entrance he'd found. He knew for a fact that the Pooka couldn't enter the Workshop, but he also had a growing suspicion as to why that was so. Eostre might have been life, but he was also death. Such a duality would suit a god of old, but the Easter Bunny's magic held no such darkness.

Perhaps that was what happened, when the magic of Fear mingled with that of Light?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone probably now knows what quirk I gave Eostre's powers. But I'll still be keeping mum about my plans for that quirk. ;)


	8. A Deed Without a Name

Mary was popular among the boys of the village. She had long hair and a sweet face and she was near marriageable age. There would be plenty of suitors lining up for her hand once her father started accepting requests. Naturally, with all these young men to choose from, she wanted the one who didn't seem particularly interested. This was because she was a romantic at heart and did quite fancy herself a heroine from a story.

Of course to Mary her life was something wholly unique and completely hers and so she wasn't particularly looking to duplicate a romantic tale. Still, to her it was incredibly exciting to attempt to entice a man with meaningful glances and meaningless words.

The people of the village spoke a great deal of Jackson Overland. He was quiet, sullen and held little respect for his elders. He was _cold_ , had been that way since his sister's death.

Emma Overland had drowned, in the lake right outside the village premises. It had happened some winters past, when the little girl and her brother had gone skating. Only Jackson had returned and even he seemed to have had a piece on him die along with his sister. He was never the same after what had happened.

Mary's dream naturally was to break through Jackson's icy exterior. She imagined her love melting his heart and the thought made her giddy.

There was a great deal of darkness about Jackson Overland. He had dark hair, his soft brown eyes held shadows and he had a dark disposition. And nothing must have been darker than his soul when he ventured to the lakeside in the crisp winter evening.

To Mary, it had seemed like a chance to soothe Jackson's soul. It was because of this that she followed him, even as the cold air made her shiver. While it was already proper winter, she had put on a lighter coat. She hoped Jackson might chivalrously offer to share his warmth with her.

When Jackson saw her approaching, he smiled, and Mary felt her heart speed up. She had gotten through to him, but he could only show it here, outside the village, outside anyone's sight. Mary made her way closer.

The lake was considered a dangerous place by the village folk. For some reason it never froze completely during the winter and many careless ice skaters had fallen in. The rumors said it was because the ghost of Emma Overland wanted company but Mary's aunt said the lake had been like that since the elderly aunt was a girl. Still, more of the people falling in seemed to end up drowning since Emma's death.

Mary could feel it in the air, the dark atmosphere of death. It made the rendezvous all the more exciting for it as Jackson reached out to grasp her hand. Then he led her onto the ice.

On top of the ice, Mary felt apart from the rest of the world, like there was no world besides the lake clearing, and no one else in existence but Jackson and her. Her breathing picked up.

They stopped walking near the middle of the lake, facing each other. The water sloshed pleasantly in the background in a nearby crack in the ice. Jackson's hand rose to the back of Mary's head.

Jackson grabbed Mary tightly and shoved her head first into the ice cold water of the lake.

There truly was darkness in Jackson Overland, but no one could tell when it began. Perhaps the death of his younger sister was the catalyst, the loss driving him into madness. Or maybe there had always been something twisted within him and his sister was simply his first victim.

There was no way of knowing the fate of Emma Overland. But at any matter Mary wasn't Jackson's only victim. There were other village girls, beautiful in both life and death. But eventually Jackson's sins caught up with him and he too was drowned in the lake.

The people of Burgess thought they'd stopped Jackson for good by killing him. What they did, however, was only give him more tools to kill with. Jackson became a wraith that took lives wherever he could, travelling around the world and leaving cold corpses in his wake.

When it came to picking out a Jack Frost, Pitch had more than enough candidates to choose from. Good or evil, winter spirits were chaotic and delighted in causing trouble for the more orderly side of the world. The morally dark ones, in addition, were naturally inclined towards selfishness and darkness.

Mortals came back to life with the touch of immortals. It could be either a blessing or a curse or both, and such a fate could be deserved or undeserved as either a gift or a punishment. To Pitch it seemed that the heroic Jack Frost, who deserved another chance at life to become a Guardian, would be matched by a Jack Frost who had been cursed to wander the Earth half-alive, fully deserving of such harsh karma.

Because of this Pitch chose the Jack Frost who came to be when the villagers of Burgess attempted to get rid of a mortal killer, only to create an immortal one. This Jack Frost wandered the Earth for centuries, killing as many young ladies as he could with his chill or a blade. Apparently Jack had particular tastes for how the corpses he left behind should look, and had developed an affinity to the color red since his death.

Only, the cold never left. Jack's condition was a curse, and due to this he couldn't control his powers. So the winter spirit was always cold to others and himself. He sought out mortals partially to attempt to leech off the warmth of their life, but mostly he did it to kill more. After all, by now the spirit knew quite well that he would always be freezing.

This Jack Frost was ruthless and resigned, not rebellious and brave. Maybe he'd be reasonable as well, instead of obtuse like the one on Pitch's world. And so Pitch had proposed an alliance to the cold young man.

It was clear from the sight of this Jack Frost that he couldn't control his powers. He was pale, with light purple lips, and looked very much like he'd frozen to death. His skin was so white that his veins were clear through the almost luminescent skin, and it brought the dark shadows under the spirit's sleepless eyes into sharp focus. Icicles hung from his clothes and he would have looked quite pitiful if it weren't for the bright blue eyes that shone with power and awareness.

The Jack Frost that was Pitch's enemy was powerful, but this Jack Frost seemed barely capable of containing his power inside his scrawny body. How would they match up against each other, Pitch couldn't help but wonder.

"Why would I leave one cold world for another, Pitch Black?" This Jack Frost's voice was like the wind, breathy with a pitch and strength that changed mid-sentence. "Why would I choose to become your ally?"

"Because we are so alike," Pitch insisted, drawing close to the other spirit. "We both have so much power we can hardly keep it inside and from lashing out at anything around us." Well, Pitch had once been that powerful; he could still remember it and had briefly tasted it again when he'd last faced the Guardians. "You look like winter itself, while I am the very visage of darkness."

"Aren't you tired of being pushed aside due to something you cannot help?" Pitch leaned over the shorter spirit, who stared at him impassively. "I would never shun you. Why would I turn on you for your power to harm when I can do no less with mine?"

"I do not _harm_ people, Pitch Black," Jack replied softly. "I _kill_ them. We are nothing alike." The winter spirit backed away, even as Pitch tried to stay in the other's personal space, fingers tracing the smaller spirit's arm. "Fear isn't compatible with death, Pitch Black, and that is what I am. Death and cold."

This time Pitch was the one taking a step back; his fingers were prickling from the cold and he’d rather not get frostbite. So standoffish, but maybe that was a common trait of Jack Frosts.

"Aren't you lonely, then?" Pitch asked. "Being death is most likely very much so."

"I don't care about loneliness _or_ company," Jack replied readily. "My heart is too cold to be moved by either." The winter spirit shrugged, his icicles tinkling together with the movement. "If I could get warm, it might be a different story." The bright blue eyes fixed an intent stare on Pitch. "If you had a power to thaw me, you would be worth something to me."

"Hardly," Pitch started, but then paused to consider. Slowly, he smiled. "I have a god of spring on my side, however. Perhaps _that's_ what you need, a spring thaw."

"There aren't many other spirits besides me, so I've never met a spring entity." Jack was considering it now. "Very well, then. Let's see this spring god of yours, and just how warm they are."

"Then we have a deal, Jack Frost," Pitch said with ease and proceeded to guide the other spirit over the threshold between dimensions. It was when the realities were already in the process of merging and separating that the winter entity spoke again: "I'm not really commonly known as Jack Frost, you know."

"Oh?" Pitch quirked a brow as the darkness of his lair descended on the pair. "What are you commonly called then?"

"The death I bring, of course. I couldn’t let people think that my victims died of natural causes." Jack smiled, and somehow his teeth seemed sharper than they should be. “They call me Jack the Ripper."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, the identity of Jack the Ripper has been figured out recently [thanks to a forensic breakthrough](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jack-ripper-murder-mystery-solved-4177665). Let's just assume that on the other world Jack the Ripper's identity really is a mystery.
> 
> I'm studying Victorian Gothic Horror literature for my Master's Thesis so I structured Jack's story like a Victorian Gothic horror story, from the female lead to the themes of forbidden desire and dangers of isolation. (I'm such a nerd.)
> 
> Also, Pitch has a vague idea about how personal space works. He just only maintains it with people he feels threatened by. Jack very quickly became threatening.


	9. Like Elves and Fairies in a Ring

When North and Toothiana entered the tunnel, the difference was immediately noticeable. While Bunny's tunnels were dimly lit, they weren't _bleak_ like this. Rather, they held the soft glow of a sunrise that promised daylight on the other end. This tunnel was more like sunset in the way it was creeping towards darkness, every passing moment seemingly stealing more of the light away.

Toothiana was the one who led the way through the dark passage. She worked in the dark of night a lot and, while she wasn’t strictly one of the fae, she suspected the parts of her that weren’t bird had turned from human to fae along the years. This meant that she was enough of a fairy to be able to navigate a fairy lair.

The tunnel was large. The fae that had taken the place over had done her best to make the tunnels into a labyrinth. All the better for children to get lost in, Toothiana mused angrily. She’d always despised child eaters above all other monsters.

Sensing the air thicken with magic, Toothiana lifted her hand to the hilt of the sword hanging on her hip. Beside her, North’s posture stiffened, the other readying himself for surprises due to sensing either the change in the atmosphere or the change in Tooth.

When it came to combat, Toothiana was most often on the same wavelength with North. They both preferred to attack physically, in close quarters. Meanwhile their teammates preferred long distance or even magical attacks. As such, Toothiana was glad the one beside her was North, especially when they’d most likely be forced to fight in a cramped space.

The pair moved with a steady pace, until North lifted a hand, stilling them both. The man had decades upon decades of experience dealing with silently moving elves and spotting their mischief before it happened, so Toothiana took his lead and also listened carefully.

There were voices coming from further ahead, and Toothiana landed to walk silently beside North as they went into that direction. The pair came across a large cavern with deep shadows to hide in. Toothiana couldn’t see what was going on inside unless she moved further in, but that would reveal her to a possible enemy as well.

“Sounds fair enough to me,” a female voice spoke. “The demon does take up space.”

“You do realise he doesn’t have a physical presence in the classical sense, right?” The second voice that spoke was gruff and somehow familiar to Toothiana. She couldn’t stop to consider that however, before the first voice continued: “Well, he _crowds_ me in a very classical sense.”

Toothiana hadn’t expected to run into more than one enemy, but it seemed that the enemies in question were distracted by something. She turned over to her companion and North made a gesture with his already-unsheathed sword. Now would be a good time to attack. Toothiana drew her own blade was a sign of agreement. The pair moved in.

It quickly became obvious why the mysterious enemies were so distracted. It turned out that the deep shadows in the cavern were the result of a portal of darkness that had manifested itself in the middle of the space, with two of the four spirits that Tooth quickly counted already going through the process of travelling through it.

For a short moment Toothiana saw horns, horns and a massive bulk that reached all the way to the ceiling of the cavern. The creature was covered in pelts so Toothiana couldn’t even guess at the creature’s true shape and size before it was drawn into the shadows of the portal by a rabbit-shaped spirit. They both vanished into the darkness before they could spot Tooth and North and change their direction, but Tooth had seen them, even if briefly.

Two other beings stayed behind. One was a silvery manlike shape that seemed to be pointy in every way imaginable, from the long, narrow limbs to the beak-like nose. They other one was fairy and the mere sight of her made Toothiana’s blood boil.

“Some sort of shadow Guardians,” Tooth breathed out for North’s benefit before she attacked.

Doppelgangers, shape-shifters, conjured mirror images or even magical constructs made to confuse, Toothiana didn’t care what the purpose of these abominations was. All she cared about was getting at the monster with her face, the face she had used to get close to one of her closest and dearest friends, the friend that the monster had _hurt_.

The fae saw her coming, but she wasn’t faster than Toothiana and it was too late for her to avoid the first sweep of Toothiana’s blade. The enchanted iron sliced the creature's arm, the fae's skin sizzling and burning at the point of injury. The fae herself hissed as well as she attempted to retaliate with her claws. She quickly thought better of it when Toothiana’s sword struck again, retreating to a safer distance.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Toothiana said, her grin broad and showing off her well-tended teeth. “Maybe I should cut _your_ tongue off, abomination.”

A startled shout from North brought Tooth’s attention away from her prey. The dark fae stayed away from the sword, as Tooth still kept it pointed at her, while the Tooth Fairy turned to see the silver-colored, scrawny Sandman-look-a-like use a wave of silvery sand to overwhelm North and slam the large man into a cavern wall.

“You know,” the sand monster spoke in a voice that sputtered and hissed like his mouth was full of teeth that were as long and sharp as the rest of him, “blue has always been my favorite color.”

Not willing to find out what the words were hinting at, Toothiana turned her back on her lookalike and took off towards the other two combatants.

“North!” Tooth called as she tried to fly to her friend’s aid. Only, her wings refused to work and she fell to the ground.

“What the-?” the fairy hissed as she attempted to flutter her sluggish wings, but managed only a very slow movement. Her quickening breaths were coming out as puffs of soft mist. When had the temperature dropped so much?

There was a tinkling sound, like an off-tune wind chime, and a pair of feet appeared in Tooth’s line of vision.

Tooth looked up at a young man who seemed very similar to Jack Frost, if Jack had no control over his powers. Icicles hung off the cape wrapped around his shoulders, tinkling together softly with every movement the other made. His skin was so pale it was pure white, except for the deep purple shadows under his sunken-in eyes.

“Cold is bad for tropical birds, right?” the not-Jack spoke slowly, his coldly emotionless eyes staring at Tooth’s by now shivering form intently. “I figured it might be so, you do look rather tropical.”

“Turn it down already,” the other fairy screeched, standing some distance away, wings vibrating to keep them from freezing. “I’m freezing here!”

“I feel a bit sluggish myself,” the not-Sandman added in, an unconscious North hanging from the grasp of his magical, shimmering sands.

The not-Jack sighed heavily, wrapping his arms around his long staff to hug it to himself. The cold began to retreat. “Everyone prefers being warm,” he murmured, but not in an offended tone.

This didn't look good, Toothiana decided. In her thirst for revenge she'd completely ignored the possibility that her lookalike might have been a part of some grander scheme. And now, as a burst of silvery sand itched in her eyes and tried to knock her out, she realized that this was all a co-ordinated attack.

She only hoped her friends were still alright.

 

* * *

 

Some evil spirits were just suicidal, Jack decided. When he'd left Bunny's room to ask one of the yetis that looked particularly idle to pick up bandages and painkillers for future treatment of Bunny's injuries, he hadn't expected his friend to already be in peril when he turned back inside.

But that was what happened. A silvery spirit, who seemed almost transparent was looming over Bunny with a long, curved nose and even longer and curvier fingers right in Bunny's face, saying something about plucking out his eyes.

Jack didn't take kindly to people picking out pieces of Bunny. He agreed that Bunny had some really pretty peepers, but he really rather preferred them in their place in Bunny's head. He rather preferred all of Bunny's pieces to be attached to him, since he was rather fond of the whole he made up. As such it was natural he got a bit protective over the Easter Bunny.

It was only when he'd already hit the threatening spirit twice, leaving him crumbled on the floor in frozen chunks, that Jack realized that he'd done more than just gotten protective. The ice cold rage that had risen in him and brought him to freeze his enemy deeply enough to make them so brittle they shattered wasn't something he was familiar or all that comfortable with.

Then Jack thought about Bunny curled up on the den couch, silently panicking over his lost tongue and clinging to Jack for safety. Jack promptly lifted his shepherd's crook and brought it down a few times more to make sure his enemy was in too small pieces to put himself back together again.

The chunks of the spirit shattered easily, not something that usually happened even when Jack managed to deeply freeze something, let alone other spirits. Spirits were commonly made of sterner stuff. Letting the peculiarity pass for now, Jack turned to Bunny.

Bunny was pushing himself into a sitting position on the bed, looking slightly befuddled, before he flinched and clamped a hand over his muzzle. Jack immediately rushed to the other's side, full of worry.

"Don't try to talk," he instructed as his hands tried to slip under Bunny's own to feel the bandages. "You'll tear your stitches and piss off Tooth." Jack's fingers touched the fabric, and found it dry, so Bunny probably hadn't gotten himself hurt again. The winter spirit let go of his companion to take another look at the strange assailant.

He poked the frozen remains with the end of his staff suspiciously. There were glimmers of pure magic trapped inside the ice. It had probably been a magical avatar then, not the malicious spirit in person. North had explained the skill to Jack, as it was something Pitch was known to be capable of doing with corrupted dreamsand.

Magical avatars were fragile, but they were the one form of magic that could slip through most protective wards. Because of that they were good for scouting. They could also be used to make a foothold, or even open an entrance to magically protected areas for whoever had sent them. It was a good thing Jack had struck it down immediately.

Jack stilled in shocked realization. But there _was_ already an entrance to the Workshop, one Jack had accidentally created by breaking in with power born from worry.

"I have to check something," Jack told Bunny, trying not to let his foreboding show even as the other spirit glared at him in suspicion. "Stay here, it should be safe now." He pointed a finger at Bunny for emphasis, who snorted rudely in response, rolling his green eyes.

Regardless his willingness to comply, Jack doubted Bunny had the means to leave the room and get into trouble. Jack left the room and signalled a nearby yeti, who was brandishing a first aid kit, to keep an eye on the room. With that Jack started to make his way through the hallways, breaking into a run at the first sign of panicking elves that were too distressed over something to cause mischief.

Jack stormed into the den, where the windows had been burst open from the outside once more. This time, however, they had been forced open by a malicious presence. There were a couple of yetis lying on the floor, obviously having been struck down by the new arrival as their friends were pulling them away from the looming threat.

The dark spirit truly did loom. An enormous horned spirit was taking up most of the room with its large bulk covered in a fur cloak. The day had been clear but now a storm was howling outside and the cold was invading the room, rolling into the room in flurries of snow that fell around the large spirit.

"You," the monster spoke in a gravelly voice while directing its eyes towards Jack. The conscious yetis succeeded in dragging their friends out of the room while the gaze of two burning eyes focused solely on Jack.

"Yeah, me," Jack murmured as he gripped his shepherd's crook tighter. He was sure he hadn't met this spirit before - he'd never encountered a spirit this large or dark - but he didn't know what else he should say. "What do you want?"

"The Guardians." The answer came with a roiling mist that rose in the room.

Jack decided he was just about done with weird, dark spirits threatening his friends. He wasn't letting this thing anywhere near Bunny. Jack slammed the end of his staff against the floor, dropping the temperature in the room further, until the mist turned into diamond dust. He was betting the unknown monster would have a hard time harming anyone if he was too stiff to move.

Or then Jack could freeze him solid and shatter him, like the previous comer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing Tooth's point of view. She's such a spirfire. Also Jack is reeeeally focused on keeping Bunny safe.


	10. Here's Another, More Potent than the First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween to all the scary monsters and super creeps of the internet! Here's an extra-length chapter to celebrate the holiday!

Bunny was thinking much more clearly now and he couldn't believe how clingy he'd been. Now everyone was going to think he had a crush on Jack Frost.

Speaking of comforting presences and gentle hands, Bunny really should be checking up on where the winter spirit got off to. Jack had been gone for several long minutes, which was strange considering how much the other had hovered while Bunny had recovered from the worst of the black magic poisoning.

It was with legs shakier than he would have liked that Bunny climbed off the bed and made his way out of the room. He made it as far as opening the door before there was a yeti blocking his path, blathering about changing bandages and antibiotics and Bunny really didn't have time for that. He had to go check on Jack and find out what had the winter spirit so on edge. He told the invasive yeti as much, in yetish.

Fortunately the yeti language didn't rely much on fancy tongue work, as Bunny still didn't have a proper tongue to pronounce words with. The flap of flesh in his mouth would grow into a proper tongue with some more time, but for now it ached and throbbed like an overused muscle and Bunny really preferred not to use it as much as he had to.

Thankfully the yetis were very forthcoming with what was going on in the Workshop. A demon had gotten in and Jack was trying to chase it off. Bunny knew North tinkered with more than playthings in his workshop, so he had to run to make a quick detour. It was getting easier to move around the longer he was up on his feet; the symptoms from the poisoning were starting to fade.

When Bunny finally made it into the den, he first thought he’d managed to get lost and use the wrong door. He was absolutely convinced he’d actually gone outside when he saw the flurrying snowstorm that almost completely obscured his vision. Then he saw a flash of blue.

Jack was holding his shepherd’s crook in both hands, and the intense look of concentration on his face told that he was behind the storm. And each blow of wind and ice was directed at a massive form that Bunny had difficulty analyzing the shape of.

The tall, slightly curving horns and the red eyes that glowed even through the storm told Bunny that this was very much a demon. A demon immune to frost, judging from the way the large being simply stared at Jack, waiting for the winter spirit to wear himself out before striking out.

The demon wasn’t bothered by the cold, despite the fact that Jack was exerting more power than Bunny had ever seen. He would have to cut in. Bunny had thought it was amazing when he'd first seen it, this aura of power, but now he could see how dangerous it was. Someone with a power like Jack's shouldn't lose control or there would be damage to both himself and everything around him. And Jack seemed to be very close to losing himself to the power.

Bunny rotated the circular object in his palm. It was merely a touch larger than his egg bombs, but a whole lot heavier. He’d need to be careful aiming it, but Bunny had spent centuries throwing things and improving his accuracy, both for battle purposes and venting his temper. He took aim and threw.

The flash grenade worked as advertised, filling the room with pure white light. But since the device was built by North, the light wasn’t its only effect. The demon howled like nothing Bunny had ever heard on earth, the undiluted moonlight chasing away the darkness. It was light magic and, like a light spirit like Bunny couldn’t stomach dark magic, a demon would suffer when exposed to light magic.

When the light faded, only Jack stood in the room, blinking at the spot where the demon had been with wide eyes. There was black soot covering a great chunk of the wooden floor, whatever had burned off the demon while it had been banished.

Bunny rushed over to Jack’s side, noticing how the winter spirit looked almost worn away from how much magic and himself he’d poured out. If Bunny had his speech he'd give the spirit a stern talking-to. But, as things stood, he had to settle for lobbing the guy over the head.

"Hey!" Jack lifted a hand to cover his head and yelped angrily, but he fell silent when Bunny proceeded to press his muzzle in his face.

Bunny was better at riling people up than calming them down, but he tried his best to nuzzle Jack's cheeks and forehead in a gentle manner despite the urgency nagging at him. Finally, Jack's skin stopped being so dreadfully cold and Jack's hands grabbed his chest ruff.

“What’s wrong?” Jack’s voice sounded normal, so he probably hadn’t done irreparable damage to himself. The fact that he was warming up again was a good sign as well; even though Jack was never really the full warmth of 37 Celsius that humans had, he wasn’t supposed to be cold to the touch.

Stepping back away from the other spirit, Bunny rubbed the back of his neck. He was still a bit annoyed at the other for risking himself, but he supposed he’d save the proper chastising to when he had a voice to lecture with again. Jack would be more likely to get the point then too.

Jack glanced back to the soot marring the floorboards. "Where did you get that thing?"

Bunny lifted a hand to gesture to the general direction of the workshop proper.

"Ah." Jack nodded and grinned. "North makes toys for all ages then?"

Releasing a breath in a somewhat-laugh, Bunny started to consider the situation. North and Tooth were off at Burgess and Sandy was still accounted for. And now he and Jack had been attacked. They were being targeted.

Bunny's foot tapped the floorboards as he thought and fretted. He really would prefer going after North and Tooth to make sure they were alright, to check over how much of his tunnels had been corrupted.

"Do you want to go to the Warren?" Jack asked suddenly and Bunny stopped fidgeting as he considered the question. Then he nodded and Jack continued: "We might need weapons." The winter spirit paused. "We'll most likely need weapons."

Jack had a point. With another nod Bunny started to head out of the room. Jack hurried after him to catch up to his longer strides. The smaller spirit laughed. "You know," he spoke companionably. "This silent resoluteness makes me feel like you actually have a plan. It's comforting."

Bunny turned his head to look down at Jack, who grinned at him.

"So, if you _don't_ have one, don't tell me."

Jack's faith in him bolstered Bunny's bruised confidence, and the Pooka walked with his head held high.

 

* * *

 

Bunny really was quite inspiring, Jack mused as the Pooka managed to garble out sentences in yetish. It was a really guttural language and hearing Bunny speak it with his deep voice had Jack quite distracted even as the Pooka hiked his hoodie up to clamp a weapon harness around his torso.

In fact, the only reason Jack didn't turn into an embarrassed mess over Bunny's soft fur touching his bare skin was that he was too distracted by the other making throat sounds that had Jack's thoughts going to all sorts of directions they shouldn't. This really wasn't a good time for that.

The harness was a good idea, though. Jack's hoodie was loose enough to hide it from sight, and it made Jack feel better prepared for whatever they might run into next. The winter spirit didn't fancy another encounter with that weird demon with nothing but his cold as a weapon.

Bunny also geared up, stocking his bandolier with more of those light grenades that he had used on the winter demon. He noticeably kept his boomerangs strapped to the back instead of picking up a blade like the one he'd equipped Jack with. He clearly wasn't planning on letting anyone within grabbing distance.

As soon as they were geared up to Bunny’s satisfaction, the two of them were travelling through a tunnel to the Warren. They were moving swiftly, Jack’s wind howling in the narrow space as Bunny’s paws drummed the ground. Jack thought the tunnel looked darker than it should, but they were through too fast for him to really check.

The Warren was quiet. Jack wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

Bunny broke into a four-legged run through the Warren and Jack gripped his shepherd's hook tightly to glide after. The pair came to a stop at a plant that really didn't fit Bunny's sense of decor.

It was a black flower, swollen and midnight black in color. It looked almost like a sack, the way it had closed on itself so tightly. Bunny was pressing his palms against the plant, and Jack wouldn’t be surprised if the Easter Bunny had a spring-related ability that allowed him to magically check the plant.

“What is it?” he asked, keeping his voice low like that would somehow distract Bunny less.

The Pooka straightened his back and rubbed his thumb against his fore and middle fingers in a signal. Jack tilted his head.

“It’s valuable?”

Bunny looked exasperated, but the expression lasted only for a moment before it was replaced by a wide-eyed look of shock. Bunny's ears stood higher up than normal and the Pooka whirled around just in time to be thrown back by a dark arrow slamming right into his side.

“Bunny!” Jack shrieked as Bunny released a pained grunt before slamming down onto the grass. The Pooka wasn’t getting up to pay the shooter back, which alone told of how injured he must have been, but he was still making sounds, like he was trying to assure Jack he was still fine.

Jack was moving his gaze between Bunny and the direction the arrow had come from. He was brandishing his staff like he could hold off any other such attacks with it and scowled deeply. He knew who had arrows like that; he still had nightmares about it.

“Pitch!” Jack howled and he could feel his body temperature dropping as his magic rose along with his temper. “Show yourself!”

“That’s an understandable mistake, but not quite,” a voice spoke from the right and Jack quickly snapped into that direction.

‘Bunny,’ was Jack’s first thought. ‘Definitely not Bunny,’ was his second one. There was a vaguely rabbit-shaped spirit sitting on a rock a short distance away, peering at Jack with bright yellow eyes. It was strange; the new spirit had Bunny’s shape, yes, but everything else about him was very familiar to Pitch Black.

“What are you?” Jack asked the newcomer.

The Bunny-lookalike smiled, showing off his rows of sharp canine teeth. Jack took a fighting stance.

"Now, now," the stranger spoke in Bunny's voice as he lifted his bare hands. "There won't be a need for that. I won't harm you."

"Yeah, right," Jack spat back.

The dark spirit placed a hand over his chest. "I'm a lover, not a fighter. I really do not intend you harm."

Jack shot a meaningful look at Bunny, who was looking better now, for some reason focusing on the black plant again, like he was trusting Jack to watch his back while he did what he needed to. Jack turned back to the stranger, who attempted to give him a disarming smile. It would have worked much better without the sharp predator teeth.

"Yes, well, him I'm not making promises of." The rabbit spirit sneered. "He'll be fine. We can handle more than a little pain."

He'd said 'we'. Jack frowned. "Are you a Pooka, like Bunny?"

"More like a Pooka completely _unlike_ Bunny." The dark Pooka stood up and Jack took a step closer to him, to be ready to attack and better defend Bunny. The Pooka smiled in amusement. "We should get going. Pitch Black will tell you the rest of it; I'm sure he's looking forward to gloating over a victory _I_ delivered to him."

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Jack snarled.

A dark look came across the Pooka's face before darkness swallowed him. Jack felt the familiar and foreboding shift in the atmosphere and quickly turned around to see the dark spirit with his arms wrapped around Bunny, pulling the spring spirit into his chest even as Bunny attempted to claw his smugly grinning face.

They really did look like they were made from the same mould, Jack noticed a touch distractedly as the two Pookas briefly struggled. The strange Pooka was like Bunny's dark mirror reflection.

"Let him go." Jack growled, baring his teeth at a _yet another_ threat to _his_ Bunny. "I'll do unspeakable things to you if you as much as _breathe_ on him."

"I'll hold you to that," the Pooka spoke and a black smog passed over Bunny, causing the light spirit to slump down and hang limply in the other's arms. Then he whisked Bunny into his arms and turned in place, stepping right into a dark portal.

Really, there was no way Jack could have done differently. He immediately leaped after the two Pookas, willingly falling into the abyss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With Bunny's completely transparent denial and Jack's inability to think straight around Bunny, I just can't decide which one I liked writing in this chapter most.
> 
> I'll just be diplomatic and go with Eostre. He's so diabolical here.


	11. Double, Double Toil and Trouble

The cold was the first thing Tooth became aware of when she came to. The fact that she could feel it was equal parts distressing and a relief. The violent shivers of her body bode ill for her health, but they were also a clear sign that she wasn't yet dying from the cold.

There was also warmth. She was pressed up against another body that felt so warm to her cold skin that it felt feverish. A large hand was rubbing her shoulders and back, trying to force warmth into her. There was a spicy scent in her nose.

Tooth lifted her head to see she'd been pressed into North's warm side. There was a relieved murmur from North at her movement and Tooth's eyes fell to a set of strange chains that kept them both trapped against the floor and which were most likely the reason she hadn't woken up in Nicholas' lap.

The chains were a strange patchwork of black and silver, two different magics working together to create something that wouldn't be shattered as simply as a singular magical substance. There was a bundle of these chains attached to the floor and a sweeping glance revealed that Jack and Bunny were also tied up similarly to her and North. There was no sign of Sandy, nor of the spirits who'd imprisoned them.

"What's going on?" Tooth finally asked, hoping one of her friends had answers. "Who's behind all of this?"

"I was told Pitch is the mastermind," Jack answered with a deep scowl. "He's probably waiting for you to wake up to make a dramatic entrance."

"And the look-alikes?" Tooth pressed. "The Shadow Guardians?"

"We don't know," North said softly. "They all have different powers, I doubt they come from same source."

"One of them looks like Bunny," Jack said. "But he had Pitch's powers." The winter spirit looked disturbed. "There’s also a demon who's immune to my cold."

"Silvery Sandman doesn't match Sandy either," North noted.

"Their tooth fairy looks like me, but I doubt she can divide herself like I can. They also have a Jack Frost who seems to have the right powers but just looks wrong," Tooth continued with her own observations. "There seems to be no rhyme or reason here."

There was a shift in the atmosphere that centuries of fighting had taught Tooth to associate with a specific foe. The deep shadows in the room parted as Pitch Black appeared, flanked on both sides by his collection of horror gallery Guardians.

Tooth made account of all the dark spirits present and made up her mind. They would all pay for everything they'd done to harm her friends. The cold was much less of a bother by now; her anger would warm her right up.

 

* * *

 

Jack was definitely having a bad day. In addition to having to literally fight threats to Bunny off with a stick, he'd ended up whammied by a shadow portal and had woken up without said stick. As such, he really wasn't in the mood for Pitch's smugly smirking face.

"Did you practise that grand entrance beforehand or are you all Bond villains?" Jack sneered at Pitch and his ‘Shadow Guardians’, as Tooth had coined them.

"Not even that considerable defiance of yours will help when you've been so utterly defeated," Pitch spoke confidently.

To the side, Tooth bristled against her chains, the magic sparkling as it kept her trapped. "You wouldn't be so full of yourself if Sandy was here!"

"The Sandman has been taken care of," Pitch replied before smirking, only to be interrupted by the dark Pooka beside him snapping: "You're welcome, by the way."

Pitch gave his temperamental ally a withering look and Jack wondered if this dissent in the ranks could be used to their advantage. That was how it always went in the movies.

"What have you done with him?" Tooth growled in a tone that made it clear that any pain Sandy had gone through would be repeated on both Pitch and his lackeys.

"He's in a safe place," the Pooka said with a grin that gave the impression that he thought himself particularly clever. Most likely he'd hidden Sandy then.

The Pooka jumped suddenly, moving away from the icy spirit beside him. Jack was struck by how much and yet little this spirit looked like him. There were dead plants at the duo's feet and Jack heard the Pooka hiss something about killing his plants being rude to the Jack-but-not. It was an almost normal interaction from the dark spirits.

"What's your goal this time, Pitch?" North asked in a deep rumble.

Pitch looked particularly giddy at being the center of attention again. "I have a many goals, actually," the Boogeyman explained eagerly. "Taking you all down a peg, stripping you of your power and influence." He grinned with his sharp teeth. "Replacing you all with new Guardians that see things my way."

"Where did you even get them?" Tooth asked. "You don't have such skills."

"You know nothing of my skills." Pitch was in full-blown self-praise mode by now. "I repurposed a Dimensional Sieve to create my very own portal to other worlds." Pitch couldn't look more self-important in that moment if he'd tried. "Seems like the lot of you aren't the champions of justice you fancy yourselves everywhere."

Pitch spread his arms, indicating his kitsch collection of dimensional alternates. " _La Belle Dame des Dents_ is very much a tooth fairy," Pitch introduced as the fairy on his left wiggled clawed fingers in a wave. "Only she actually uses the teeth she collects to increase her bird collection."

"Children make for lovely songbirds," the dark fairy cooed. " _And_ they taste good baked."

Even with the quietly fuming Bunny chained between them, Jack could feel the pure rage that Tooth was radiating on his left.

"You've actually managed to sink lower than ever, Pitch," Tooth growled with disgust and hatred. "Associating with child-eaters."

Pitch scoffed. "As if I care what _you_ think." The Boogeyman indicated to the silvery spirit beside _La Belle Dame_ that shimmered and shifted like sand but still managed to look more solid than the magic construct Jack had fought previously. "Much like Beldam, Der Sandmann is a collector, and was more than willing to change hunting grounds for a while."

"I especially like blue eyes," Sandmann's accented voice rolled lazily, gaze focused on North. Tooth puffed up her feathers. Jack suspected the reason North was able to keep his cool through this all was primarily because Tooth was making such an exceptionally good job of being outraged for the both of them.

Jack himself was having difficulties staying still. His eyes kept sweeping over the room, observing their enemies and checking the condition of his friends and trying to catch a glimpse of his shepherd's crook. Bunny was silent, most likely due to still missing his tongue, and the Pooka looked like he was thinking something over. Jack realized that Bunny was the one most likely to know what the 'Dimensional Sieve' that Pitch had mentioned was. Unfortunately he couldn't share.

"Yule Goat here is a much more fitting Santa Claus, at least in my humble opinion," Pitch carried on, only to receive derisive snorts from the entirety of the captured Guardians. "Well, it's not like it matters what _you_ think." The Boogeyman sneered. "All that matters is that the children will learn to fear and behave, when it's not presents that await them but punishments for misbehaviour."

The plan was starting to form itself in Jack's mind. These shadow Guardians were twisted versions of what the Guardians did, playful myths and legends turned into horror stories. Even if the Yule Goat looming over the other Shadow Guardians didn’t really resemble North in any physical way.

"Eostre here is a god of spring," Pitch went on, moving on to the spirits on his right, like it was somehow an accomplishment to _him_ that his ally was a force of nature. Said ally rolled his eyes and muttered: "Goddess, officially." And suddenly _she was_. The scruffy looking rabbit spirit was now a beautiful maiden with flowing red hair that had leaves tangled in it.

The winter spirit standing beside Eostre stared at the other with wide eyes full of wonder. He reached out to pluck the leaves out, only to have his hand slapped away by the temperamental goddess. The icy spirit stepped back with a sulky expression.

Pitch was giving the two an unimpressed look, but twisted his face into a smile when he realized his audience could see the expression. "And Jack the Ripper," the Boogeyman spoke with a sweep of his hand, turning to give Jack a toothy grin. "He's not that different from Jack Frost, really."

That line finally broke Jack's self control. "I'm no serial killer!" he snarled in outrage, straining against the shackles that refused to give. He tried to yank himself up a couple of times before he was forced to flop down to catch his breath. He glared at Pitch coldly. "We're not impressed with your Breakfast Club of evil knock-offs, Pitch."

“I wasn’t expecting you to be impressed,” Pitch said, like it really was inconsequential that he wasn’t getting to gloat properly. “I was expecting you to feel _threatened_.” Pitch swept his arms to the sides in another grand gesture. “They will be taking your places, replacing all of your good, soft things with fear.”

“Yeah.” The new interruption came once again from the spring spirit, who stepped up to Pitch. “You called me over for a specific thing, which I took care of for you. I’m really not that interested in harassing kids. They have nothing I need.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything more for me,” Pitch hissed back. The Boogeyman attempted for a smile that was more of a snarl. “I’m merely asking you to stay as my guest for a while longer.”

Eostre, still in the woman shape, pressed her mouth into a thin, disapproving line.

“I won’t go back on the bargain,” Pitch assured the other spirit. He slid around the redhead and steered her by the shoulders towards Jack. “In fact, you can have what we agreed on right now.”

Jack had enough time to acknowledge that he didn't like where this seemed to be going before the chains holding him down shifted to lift him up. His eyes met Eostre's bright yellow ones and he blurted out: "Slavery is illegal around here."

Eostre released a good-humored laugh and Jack marvelled at how quickly the foul mood had vanished to make room for this affable interaction.

"Oh, I wasn't promised a slave," Eostre assured Jack, who wondered if the spirit wanted to add ice powers in his weird combo platter of powers.

One hand fell on Jack's shoulder and another cupped his face. Eostre smiled. "I was promised your virginity."

Apparently the chains didn't contain the movement of your arms if you were really determined to move. This Jack discovered when he was actually quite capable of punching Eostre in the face for what he said. A moment later the manacles around his wrists grew too heavy to lift again and Jack to settle for simply glaring at the dark Pooka, whose female form had fallen away when he’d been hit.

"There's no need to be like that, poppet," Eostre crooned, apparently not too discouraged over getting punched. "I'm very versatile in ways many can’t even understand." The Pooka shifted his shape as he spoke, to pretty and delicate and to handsome and strong, but Jack wasn't impressed.

Eostre took on his dark furred shape again. "I can make it good for you. I have the power to know exactly what you like," the Pooka said in a manner that was no doubt supposed to be persuasive but sounded more like a threat to Jack’s ears. "So, what do you hope for in a partner?"

It was the wording that had a stray thought crossing Jack's mind but he stifled it quickly, hoping that the other hadn't caught it.

The look on the spring god's face told Jack his hopes were for naught, as Eostre smirked with sharp teeth (and did a rabbit _really_ need canines?). As Jack's eyes passed over the sharp grin, the teeth already flattened, becoming less predator-like. The dark pelt lightened and the Pooka's posture became more upright. From a twisted mirror image of Bunny, Eostre shifted into a perfect copy of the Easter Bunny.

The worst part of it all, to Jack, was that his friends were seeing this, seeing this mockery of Bunny wear the face of the real one, all because Jack couldn't stop thinking about Bunny even when under threat.

"Well, isn't that awkward," Eostre spoke and Jack glared in response. While Eostre might not have _sounded_ like Bunny, he sure looked like Jack's friend as he rolled his shoulders in a smooth shrug. Jack put all of his willpower into not staring at the motion. It wasn't right, to see the god's sensuality in Bunny's body.

"You're really wasted on my counterpart," Eostre spoke. His hand was still on Jack's face, keeping him from turning, from seeing his friends. "We're such opposites I bet he has no sex drive. You've been wasting your time." The Pooka lowered his face to Jack's. "I'm the closest you'll ever get to having him."

Jack steeled himself. He couldn't falter in this. His eyes met Eostre's. The god had managed to perfectly duplicate Bunny's unique shade of green within them. He sighed, soft and long.

"Can you do accents?" Jack asked, focusing on those eyes. "I'm also partial to slang, mostly strine."

There was a spluttering sound from North but Jack still wasn't allowed to look over. All he could see was the victorious grin coming to a face that wasn't supposed to look so threatening. The Pooka started to pull him out of the room and it took a great deal of effort on Jack's part not to threaten Pitch when he was guided past the Boogeyman.

Jack understood the situation. For all of the spring god's affability, Jack's friends were being held hostage and he couldn't upset the situation. At least not yet


	12. Then the Charm Is Firm and Good

Bunny was thinking. A great deal of things had happened in a short span of time and now Pitch and his Guardian derivates had vanished from the makeshift prison. Pitch was intending to let them ‘worry about their teammates in a dark space, hopefully panic a little’. Smug tosser. Bunny would punch his face right in as soon as he had the situation figured out.

Such a thing would be much more easily accomplished if Tooth didn’t insist on hissing his name over and over again with increasing volume and frequency. Bunny loved her and respected her, truly, but couldn’t she see he was _thinking_? He had to figure out where Pitch had gotten a Dimensional Sieve and what he’d done to it to do what he’d claimed to have done.

“Bunny!” And that one was North. Scoffing prominently and loudly, Bunny turned his head to his friends to give them his undivided but extremely tenuous attention.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” Tooth was still hissing, like she suspected they were being listened to. It was very likely, actually. Pitch had always enjoyed a show.

Bunny opened his mouth, then thought better of it and settled for giving Tooth a _look_.

Tooth rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, I know you can’t speak.” The fairy sighed. “I meant to ask if you’re okay but I didn’t want you to get upset because you thought I was coddling you.”

Oh, yes, brilliant. Asking if _he_ was fine when Jack was at the mercies of that… _thing_ with _his face_. They’d be lucky if Jack could look him in the face after this was all over.

“That’s probably not how you wanted to be finding out,” North added in and Bunny frowned.

What? He asked the question out loud. In Yetish. It was still the only language his mouth could manage.

“Dark Bunny is trying to seduce Jack with your face because it’s face he finds most pleasing.” North was mirroring his expression. “I doubt Jack would really fall for such shallow trick. What did you think it was?”

He’d been kind of busy feeling outraged at that hypersexual wannabe Pooka pawing at Jack to really pay much attention, actually. It wasn’t an excuse to miss vital information – he was a warrior, he was _better than that_ – but that was what happened. He’d thought it had been a guess at his relationship with Jack, a malicious jab made on the almost-more-than-friends status they’d been hovering at. Only Bunny had thought he’d been the primary source of that tension. Maybe his feelings weren’t so one-sided.

Was that what the other two were worrying about? That he’d give Jack a hard time over this? He was going to sweep Jack off his feet. As soon as they rescued the winter spirit and made sure the fake Bunny wouldn’t traumatize him.

They needed to get out of their prison for that, though. Bunny told his friends as much.

“I’m not sure if there’s anything that can beat these chains,” Tooth confessed, sounding both regretful and angry at once. “But I’m pretty sure they’re draining our power.”

"That's Sandmann's power." A new voice joined the conversation and for a moment Bunny actually thought that Jack might have escaped and was now back. But turning into the direction of the voice revealed only the _other_ Jack, the one who constantly looked like he'd just walked in from a snowstorm. Clumps of snow clung to his shoulders and tiny icicles shimmered and tinkled with every movement.

The winter spirit was tinkling a lot right then, swinging back and forth on his feet in a bored manner. Bunny noticed with no small amount of nervousness that the cool blue eyes were mostly focused on him. So far every single one of these knock-off Guardians he'd met one on one had wanted a literal piece of him. As such, he'd prefer not receiving so much attention, or any attention at all.

“Where are the rest of you lot?” Tooth asked with a suspicious glower. “It’s not like Pitch to send someone else to do his gloating for him.”

“’The lot’ are dividing jobs over how to make you obsolete.” Jack the Ripper sneered at the fairy. “I frankly couldn’t care less about them _or_ Pitch’s plot.” The winter spirit smiled, but the expression wasn’t any warmer than the sneer had been. “So, I thought I might as well hang out here.”

“You are of course welcome to stay,” North spoke out then and Bunny directed a glower at the man. No doubt the other thought he could get their prison guard to be agreeable by being nice to him. “Just, maybe not so cold, yes?” North attempted for a disarming smile. “Tooth is a tropical bird, you see.”

Ripper’s expression turned closed off. Bunny briefly wondered how bad an explosion they should expect when the spirit spoke in a low voice: “I can’t control it.” The winter spirit turned his hand around and a few snowflakes fell. "This is my punishment. Pitch promised a solution, but I've noticed that Pitch makes many promises to get what he wants."

"You figured out Pitch probably won't keep his promise?" Tooth asked, her voice not terribly sympathetic towards a spirit who'd already brought them harm.

"More like Pitch promises things that aren't his to promise."

Bunny wasn't sure if his friends understood the implications of the statement, if they'd noticed the glances Ripper was still throwing his way. The winter spirit had been awfully clingy towards Bunny's counterpart, but not jealously so. Bunny was quite willing to be that Pitch had gone and promised the frost spirit ‘spring’.

"Maybe we can make better agreement then," North suggested hopefully. Tooth scoffed beside him but stayed otherwise quiet. Tooth didn't like to compromise with dark spirits, but she no doubt understood that they didn't have much choice in their current situation.

"It's an interesting proposition," Ripper drawled as he walked nearer to the bound Guardians. "But how can I know if you're any more trustworthy than Pitch?"

Not having much patience for games, Bunny took a steadying breath before pushing what he could of his magic through the bonds placed on him. It really wasn't much; he'd tried for something like a spring breeze or a couple of flowers but only managed to shift the air briefly, barely enough to break the frost in the room.

But the frost was Ripper's, so he could notice the change. Suddenly the uncaring expression turned into one of intense greed and the winter spirit covered the remaining distance between himself and Bunny in a few quick strides.

"You know what I want," Ripper said in a low tone.

Bunny's tongue was still too clumsy for words, so he simply shrugged his shoulders and tried not to look _too_ smug.

Ripper frowned, considering. "I could probably shatter the chains, if I really tried," he spoke slowly, carefully considering his words. "If you promise to thaw me after."

Bunny didn't really need to signal his acquiescence. They both knew he'd agree. So he simply gestured towards his friends with his head.

"Fair enough," Ripper agreed readily. "I'll free them first."

Ripper did manage to shatter the chains easily with his frost. It made Bunny wonder if _that_ was the reason Pitch had so readily allowed the other Bunny to take Jack away, if the sand was perhaps vulnerable to ice. Or then the uncontrollable nature of Ripper's brand of magic made it all the more deadly.

Bunny didn't bother worrying about that when the chains around his wrists froze and crumbled away. Ripper was already reaching for him and Bunny gripped his deathly cold hands within his own. Already the other was leeching warmth off him.

"You _do_ feel like spring," Ripper gasped out with a gasping laugh. "It's amazing."

Ice blue eyes turned darker and pure white hair became a less blinding as it turned a dusty white. Life seemed to return to the other spirit as Bunny worked to undo the eternal winter the other had been trapped in. He hesitated briefly, when he saw how much Ripper looked like his Jack, but there was none of the gentle playfulness on this face so it passed. Bunny poured in a touch more magic, and felt his magic take root in the other's core.

There. That made Ripper much more harmless. His magic would never rise to the levels it had been. The winter spirit might be grateful when he realized he'd never feel that unfading cold again. He might also turn to anger when he realized there would be no more bone deep chills to unleash on others. Bunny could recognize a killer spirit when his magic entangled with one, and it would be better for everyone around Ripper if his magic was lessened.

"That does feel much better," Ripper commented when Bunny released his grip on him. "Downright pleasant."

"Yes, yes, great," Tooth huffed impatiently as she pushed herself protectively between Bunny and the winter spirit. "I take it your help ends here? Will you let us leave here or are you actually going to try acting like a guard?"

"Oh, you're free to leave," Ripper said with a wide grin. Although the expression was genuinely happy, there was an unnerving edge to it. "I need to get used to the new me."

"We will be needing weapons." North finally joined the conversation. "We should find where Pitch hid ours before going after Jack."

North had a point. They _would_ be needing weapons unless they wanted things to end like they did the last time. But Bunny felt an urgency nagging at him, to protect Jack from the monster with his face. Never mind the Dimensional Sieve...

Bunny waved a hand to get North’s attention and spoke quickly in Yetish. North frowned.

“Split up?” the other spirit repeated. “Not sure if that’s such good idea.”

“Nononono,” Tooth actually took flight in order to glare Bunny straight in the eye. “We are _not_ splitting up.”

Bunny tried to explain that they didn’t have much time, that they had to be as efficient as possible. It was actually rather easy; the modern form of the yeti language revolved greatly around organizing a workforce. He was the only one who knew how to work the Dimensional Sieve, so he’d need to see what Pitch had done with it. North and Tooth could go looking for their stolen weapons.

Tooth wasn’t very fluent in Yetish but, judging from how darkly she was glowering at Bunny, she knew perfectly well that the Pooka was arguing. North calmed the fairy down with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Understood, Bunny,” North said shortly. “Just, be quick, as a bunny, da?”

Scoffing at the joke (really it was getting old), Bunny nodded. And then their party of three split into two directions, Tooth and North heading for the main section while Bunny hurrying towards the deeper bowels of the lair.

As Bunny ran, he thought back on what Sandy had told him, when he’d been curled up around the flower that held his oldest friend prisoner. Bunny had never needed sand images to understand Sandy. Just because no earthen ears could hear the voice of a shooting star didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Pooka ears had always been special like that; they were capable of hearing things that existed in the borderline between dreams and wishes come true.

The words Sandy had repeated to him in a language long gone were important, and Bunny was sure he’d understand their true meaning once he reached the Dimensional Sieve.

The song was a clue. The song about the Golden Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am firmly of the belief that Jack would get all the Guardians who *weren't* Bunny using "quick as a bunny" as a catchphrase. Because Jack is the type to pull on pigtails and Bunny doesn't habe pigtails (and pulling on those ears would get him killed) so he just annoys him in every other way.


	13. Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

Eostre Bunnymund was a hard one to figure out. He seemed friendly enough but during every single moment Jack spent around the spring deity, he felt a foreboding twisting in his stomach that suggested his life was in constant danger.

It was because of this contradicting impression the other gave off that Jack couldn't figure out if the other kept leading Jack through shadow portals instead of doors because he was just that lazy or if he was actively trying to make Jack lose his sense of direction.

The spring spirit brought them to a stop when they encountered one of Pitch's remaining Nightmares in the hallways. Eostre smiled at the creature and leaned over to pet the Nightmare. Jack expected it to bite - Pitch didn't keep them around as _pets_ \- but the Nightmare allowed the touch, even seemed to welcome it.

"How did you do that?" Jack couldn't help but ask.

Eostre flicked an ear in query before he saw Jack looking warily at the Nightmare. He smirked. "Maybe I'm just a really likeable guy."

Jack gave the Pooka an unimpressed look. "Real nice, considering how Pitch seems perfectly willing to keep you here against your will." The winter spirit crossed his arms and quirked an eyebrow. "That just because you're such good company?"

"Don't worry," Eostre said with a wide smirk. "I'm sure I can get Pitch to see reason."

"Like I'd worry about you." Jack huffed. "I'm more worried about anyone caught in your crossfire." He glanced at the Nightmare again, who was now butting its head against Eostre's shoulder like it was a tame horse asking for treats instead of a ferocious monster of dark magic.

Eostre gave the Nightmare a look too and then turned back to Jack with a raised eyebrow. "I have my ways of making people see things my way."

No doubt, Jack mused, if he was capable of toying with Pitch's Nightmares like they were his. The winter spirit didn't get a chance to consider the implications further before Eostre was invading his personal space, causing him to jump.

"Ah, ah, no need to be so skittish, poppet," Eostre drawled in a dark tone. " _You_ don't need to worry about that."

Jack begged to differ. He very much needed to worry about that if he was going to attempt to escape or even fight off the spirit. Which would be easier said than done; he wasn't too keen on tangling with a god, especially not without his shepherd's crook. He couldn't even manage a cold breeze without it, let alone cause any real damage to the other spirit.

The smart thing to do would be to wait for a better opportunity, and maybe for something he could improvise with as a weapon. He could still whack the other hard enough to temporarily disorientate him, probably. He'd just have to find something heavy enough to use first.

Too bad the empty corridors of Pitch's dark citadel lair weren't much for offering weaponry.

 

* * *

 

"I am starting to think maybe splitting up not such a bad idea after all," North commented after he and Tooth had arrived at the vaults of Pitch's lair. "There is much ground to cover."

Tooth bristled for a moment, not liking the thought of letting North out of her sight when she'd already been separated from Sandy, Jack and finally Bunny. She hated the very thought of anything happening to any of her friends while she wasn't there to defend them.

However, the man did have a point. The lair seemed to be even larger on the lower levels than on the top ones. It would take them ages to get through the verifiable catacombs if they proceeded together. And that was time Jack probably couldn't spare.

"Alright," Tooth finally conceded with an exhale. "You start heading off to the right, and I'll take the left. I'll catch up with you once I'm done with my side."

"You think you are so much faster than me?" North quirked an eyebrow with good humor. Tooth's own lips twitched into a smile before she split off three smaller tooth fairies to help with the search.

She couldn't spontaneously create many fairies at once, and they were too deep underground, in shadows, for her to call in the rest of her troops. But these few would still speed up the search process considerably.

Tooth tilted her head, giving North a challenging look. "Last one done is a Christmas Cake."

"Bah, why is everyone always insulting Christmas Cakes?" North grumbled, but did not waste any time getting started as he rushed off.

Turning around to face the dark corridors, Tooth sighed and tried to hang on to the light-hearted feelings that came so easily around North. She would work better when she was focused on the job and not on her worry. So, she took the feeble excuse of a contest as her motivation and took flight, her fairy helpers scattering as they started combing through the vaults littered around the catacombs.

Pitch had hidden their weapons somewhere here. Tooth and North both shared a touch of a sympathetic connection with their magical tools, and it had only grown stronger the lower they'd descended. They were now closer than ever; it was only a matter of managing one last push.

 

* * *

 

The Sieve was unexpectedly easy to find. No matter how deeply Pitch corrupted the magical artefact, the hum of the Golden Age was an unfading memory that anyone with the recollection could reconnect with. The Dimensional Sieve was sentimentality, made from forging whimsy into a solid form under the glow of the Constellations.

The Sieve was made of thoughts of 'what ifs', of lost chances and luckily missed misfortunes. It was made for people more pessimistic than Bunny, for people who constantly worried about things they couldn't foresee.

Pitch had made it into something dangerous, a weapon to be used against the Guardians. Pitch had realized that their strength was their team, but he hadn't been able to mimic their unity. Pitch's team was scattered, each hunting their own advantage and abandoning the cause with ease. At least, Jack the Ripper hadn't seemed too broken up about betraying his teammates. The others might have actually been more willing to be team players.

Bunny considered the things he had learned as he leaned into the Sieve, seeing the multiverse spread out before him with no rhyme or reason. The Sieve presented him with options, with timelines different from his own. Bunny ignored them as the distraction that they were and focused on the one clue he did have.

The Pooka began to hum. He hummed to the rhythm of a nursery rhyme he didn't know, mouth forming around words that his tongue refused to articulate. He hoped it would be enough to have the words on his mind, to have the melody thrumming through his body. He hoped he could will his tongue to work properly, to make the words more real.

He was the Guardian of Hope. His hope was his greatest asset, the thing that kept him going and moving and fighting. Hope was his centre.

His centre reached out through the magic until it hit the mother load. Like attracted like, and Bunny's centre of Hope led him to another like him, another Guardian of Hope.

Magic roiled, and Bunny's heart jumped all the way to his throat when he saw the Autumn Man. He wondered if that other Bunny felt like this when he met Pitch, this sensation of being strong enough to level mountains. A magical core so much like his own would increase his might exponentially.

It was a dangerously seductive idea, but all Bunny's heart felt was the hope that such a power would save his friends.

"You look familiar, and not in a good way," the Autumn Man spoke softly, giving Bunny a critical look. "But you feel even more familiar, and in a much better way."

"Yeah, right back at ya, mate," Bunny answered. It was easy to do so. Merely the proximity to a source of power that stood in the same space as his own was expelling the dark magic poisoning him, allowing his own light magic the fix the damage he’d suffered. "I think I might have something you've misplaced."

"I don't doubt that." The other was doubtlessly also feeling the connection between them. Bunny may not have been carrying his weapons but the connection between their magical cores let the other know that they had both been fighting the same kind of darkness for equally long. It was strange to find a brother in arms on a world so far removed from his own.

The Autumn Man would help him fight Pitch's Shadow Guardians. It was wired into his very core to battle against evil. In addition to that he most likely would have a personal reason to come drag Eostre Bunnymund back onto this world kicking and screaming.

It was no less than Bunny himself would do if Pitch went and jumped dimensions. They were a matching pair, designed by the very universe to counter each other, to chase each other through space and time. It seemed it was a status quo that transcended the multiverse. Even on this world, where Bunny was the one with the power of darkness at his fingertips, Kozmotis Pitchiner would be there to fight him with the opposite magic of light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> High fives to those who guessed the Golden Man was an uncorrupted Pitchiner.


	14. Show His Eyes, and Grieve His Heart

It was only after he'd already been dragged inside a bedroom that Jack realized that he’d had a weapon on him all along. First there had been the shackles making him feel generally restrained and then there had been Eostre's oppressive presence unnerving him as distractions. But now, as he was guided into the bedroom with a hand against his back, Jack suddenly realized that there was a strap between the hand and his back, hidden under his bulky hoodie.

Right before they'd left North Pole, Bunny had made sure Jack carried an additional weapon. A weapon Pitch wouldn't have known about. The smug Boogeyman had most likely enjoyed describing how defenceless Jack was without his staff to his band of monters in such detail that no one had even thought to properly frisk Jack.

Not about to waste time and allow the other spirit to close and possibly lock the door, Jack immediately slid his hand under his hoodie to grasp the dagger he's been given. Then he whirled around and struck.

The effect was clear. Eostre released an inhuman shriek as his form rippled, becoming more darkness than fur and flesh. The morphing spirit retreated from Jack's blade, trickling inky black blood that had the stench and texture of tar.

Jack moved sideways towards the door while keeping a close eye on any sudden movements on the other's part. Eostre was giving the softly glowing weapon a wary look, while also having difficulties with keeping his form solid. The other spirit was constantly shifting, limbs appearing and vanishing in random patterns as the body tried to settle for a specific number. The same thing was happening with Eostre's eyes, which were blinking in and out of existence all over the dark body, only their gleaming golden color serving as a constant.

Growing increasingly unnerved by the creature taking over the room, Jack turned sharply and ran out of the room, holding his dagger in a steady upside down grip that would allow him to use it without him falling on it.

Eostre didn't waste time coming after the winter spirit; Jack heard growls and scrapes from behind him, following him out of the room and down the hallway. Jack chanced a glance over his shoulder but soon faced forward again, heart pounding from his chest from both the running he was doing and the panic over what he'd seen.

There were claws, claws and tentacles and more fangs than should fit into a single mouth, even if it was a gaping maw. And the thing was crawling over the ceiling, upside down like its very existence had become so contradictory that not even gravity could touch it anymore.

Jack had no idea where he was or which way would lead to his friends. Right at the moment his plan consisted of keeping as much distance between himself and the ticked off spring god as possible until someone heard the commotion and came to see what was up.

Suddenly the shadows on the walls of the dark corridor seemed to close in, and a very familiar voice shouted out: "What is going on here?"

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Unexpectedly, Jack had kind of been hoping it would be Pitch who showed up. It was the Boogeyman's fault that Jack was avoiding the advances of an eldritch abomination, after all, and if Pitch showed his long nose he might remind Eostre of who was trying to screw him over.

Odds were apparently in Jack's favor, when the first thing Pitch said was directed at the thing that used to be Eostre Bunnymund. "What is this unseemly behaviour? Is this how you repay my hospitality?" The Boogeyman's posture was ready for a fight; clearly he hadn't been blind to Eostre's displeasure with him so far.

"Hospitality only goes so far as the guests stay willingly, Pitch Black," Eostre's voice seemed to rumble from three throats at once, the three different voices creating an unnerving cacophony. "Maybe I should smack you around a bit before moving on to the winter spirit."

Jack made sure to slip further away from the two dark spirits while Pitch's shadows whirled to gather the rest of the lot of Shadow Guardians. Jack briefly noted that his own counterpart was strangely absent, but let the detail pass as Pitch addressed Eostre: "You're more likely to end up getting slapped here, Bunnymund."

" _That's_ Eostre?" the silver Sandmann hissed incredulously, while the fairy beside him made a disgusted sound at the still writhing black mass. The Yule Goat stayed resolutely silent.

Eostre smirked with his weirdly-shaped mouth. "Try me."

Having had enough of the insolence, Pitch lifted a hand to summon his nightmare sand. Nothing happened.

"What?" Pitch hissed as his wide eyes stared into the shadows. "What is this?"

"I have the same powers you do, Pitch," Eostre spoke darkly, the three voices somehow able to produce a smug tone. "I convinced your sands to bend to my will instead of yours." With that the spirit hanging off the ceiling swung a hand, smacking Pitch across the chest with a whip of black sand. The Boogeyman grunted in pain, stumbling back as he snapped: "Stop standing around! Take him down!"

Sandmann seemed quite itching for a fight, and Beldam straightened her shoulders as well. Yule Goat remained silent and still, not overly interested in the proceedings.

"I've been waiting for this," Sandmann hissed as he summoned his own silvery sand to attack Eostre with. The former Pooka merely smirked.

Jack actually had to duck when Eostre sent his two opponents flying into opposite directions in the narrow hallway. So far it had been worth all of this to see Pitch and his cronies get mauled by an alternate universe counterpart who was more Pitch's than Bunny's. The two had so much in common, from fear powers to making Jack's skin _crawl_. No wonder they hated each other so much when they were so alike. However, by now Jack was starting to wish for some decent cover.

"Maybe I _should_ stay in this world," Eostre spoke then, directing his words at Pitch again. "I have a nice position back home, but this world does offer such a nice change of pace." He gave a sharp-toothed grin. "It's not like any of you could stop me from doing whatever I want."

Well, this was going downhill fast, Jack mused as he glared around the dark hallway. This would be the perfect time for the cavalry to show up.

 

* * *

 

Toothiana did find the weapons cache before Nicholas came catching up to her, just as she had expected. The vault one of her minifairies led her to was rather sturdily build and locked securely, but Toothiana had centuries upon centuries of experience when it came to getting inside spaces. She hadn’t always been able to split herself into small and unnoticeable forms and teeth didn’t just crawl out from under pillows, no matter how Bunny offered her a spell to accomplish just that.

The Pooka could make eggs walk or even do the jig, it was his prerogative, but Toothiana had always done things with her own type of flair. So, in this situation, much like centuries before when it had been just her collecting teeth, Toothiana reached out a hand and placed it through the lock.

Selective intangibility was an ability all of her minifairies had, as it was a skill they’d inherited from her. As such, Toothiana herself could breach most blocks from walls and windows to locked doors. Enchanted blockades, like the chains from before, were more likely to pose a problem, but as long as the block wasn’t directed at her and designed to imprison, Toothiana had some leeway when it came to tweaking even magical locks.

Briefly, almost distractedly, Toothiana recalled the time she’d first shown this skill to Nicholas, unlocking the weapons vault in the Workshop. She’d showed off a bit, made sure her movements were precise and elegant, even though it had made the job last longer. She’d really wanted to impress Nicholas that time.

It had worked like a charm. Toothiana had thought Bunny had been exaggerating when he’d insisted that nothing got Nicholas revved up like some good bandit-ing and thievery. Apparently unlocking Santa-enforced vaults was enough inside such a category that Nicholas had wasted no time sweeping Toothiana into one of the most breath-taking kisses the two of them had ever shared.

It was a good memory, a little beacon of light in the looming shadows of the citadel so imbued with dark magic. It was also just the thing to strengthen Toothiana’s own magic and the vault’s door unlocked with a loud clack.

Toothiana was inside the vault in an instant, sending off her minifairies to get Nicholas. She headed for her own sabre first thing, feeling much more secure with the cold but quickly warming grip against her palm.

The thought made Toothiana pause. The grip shouldn’t have felt that cold, unless the vault was colder than the hall outside. There was a sudden sensation of being watched and Toothiana whirled around.

Jack the Ripper looked a lot more like Jack now that the worst of his cold had been thawed off him. Still, there would be no mistaking the two spirits for each other with the downright malicious grin on Ripper’s face.

“Hello again, little tropical bird,” Ripper cooed in a soft voice that was also cold as ice. “I was hoping we could play some more, just you and I.”

Of course. He _was_ called ‘Jack the Ripper’, after all. Toothiana scowled darkly at the winter spirit. “I don’t think so.”

Ripper blew a cold blast in her direction, but his powers were weaker this time than the last and Toothiana wasn’t _that_ vulnerable against cold. She hugged her Jack often enough to not mind the occasional frozen-over shirt getting in between there. Toothiana rammed right into the winter spirit and grabbed his head to slam it to the floor, pressing her blade against his throat.

“Stand down, creep!”

“You’re no fun!” Ripper spat, but stayed still according to orders.

Toothiana gave him a nasty once over. “You have the wrong Guardian, I do memories, not fun.”

It didn’t take many moments after that for Nicholas to show up, when the other proceeded to gleefully help Toothiana truss Ripper up like a Christmas turkey. Then they were off, armed and dangerous and ready to save their friends.


	15. Come Like Shadows, So Depart!

Jack already felt resignation settling in when the situation changed. For a moment Eostre spread, a shapeless mass that seemed to melt everything into itself. Then the god narrowed down into the easier-to-comprehend size he'd held before.

The Yule Goat had stepped forward, apparently having finally made up his mind to not let Eostre cover everything in his own brand of darkness.

"Ah, come now," Eostre murmured, his voice still a chilling cacophony of multiple mouths speaking at once. "After all the years we've spent together, frightening and disciplining, now you turn on me?"

"There must be balance in everything," the Yule Goat murmured in a dark tone, voice humming like a strong breeze. "You're being chaotic."

Up until then, Eostre had seemed reasonably cordial, even when his lack of proper face made emoting difficult. Now, however, a foreboding stillness fell on the creature. "So be it," the god said harshly. "If that's what you want."

The Yule Goat loomed for a moment longer, before securing his footing, the heavy cloak sliding out of the way easily as he lifted a pair of crooked claws, almost like pincers.

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair," the Pooka murmured in his voice of a legion and tore into the dark demon. And he really did tear into the Yule Goat, clawing at the other spirit in a flurry of claws and teeth. Their bodies were equally untouched by physics as their sizes seemed to shift with each passing moment.

The Yule Goat bellowed wordlessly, breathing cold and snow and blades of ice at his opponent, whose body ripped and tore and melded itself back together with fluidity. The Yule Goat's coat of pelts was ripped apart, revealing thick layers of fur that was black as the darkness that seemed to make up Eostre.

'Is either of them even real?' Jack wondered as he watched the two monsters try to maul each other. 'Is it even possible to kill something that's more concept than solid?'

The question revealed its answer when one of Eostre's sharp-toothed mouth bit down on one of the Yule Goat's numerous arms. The wound bled black ooze and refused to reseal itself. Sensing a weakness, Eostre smiled predatorily with all of his mouths and struck again.

Yule Goat’s goat skull of a face wasn’t made for vicious biting, but the demon clawed at his opponent with hooked fingers, additional limbs manifesting themselves so that he could properly tear at the god. Eostre wasn’t paying much attention to the long gashes left on his torso (it was the mostly the largest, middlemost point of the writing mass that made up his body, so it was probably his torso) and simply kept biting pieces out of Yule Goat.

The battle was brutal, and brutally one-sided. Yule Goat tried to put up a fight and did a better job of it than Jack ever could. It just seemed that Eostre had become practically indestructible. The god tore the demon apart, ripped off pieces of him that he gobbled up greedily, his own injuries constantly knitting themselves together until new ones stopped forming, until Yule Goat stopped fighting. The winter demon lied still as Eostre ate his blackened flesh and drank his inky blood. It was like the insides of the demon were made of shadows, which would make sense why Eostre, as the new undisputable Nightmare King and master of darkness, could consume his remains so effortlessly.

"Despair..." whispered Eostre once more as he stood upon the tattered remains of his opponent. The god stood tall as he faced the remaining spirits. “Who could stand against me now?" the god asked, smirking widely.

That was when a form wrapped up in gold fell out of the ceiling, a long broadsword unsheathed and aimed at the dark god. Eostre leaped back out of the path of the blow and then stood staring in astonishment at the new arrival.

At first Jack worried when he saw the man's profile. The aquiline nose and narrow chin made the man look very similar to Pitch. Then, however, a familiar furry shape dropped down from the ceiling before the rabbit hole (of course it was a rabbit hole) sealed itself.

Jack then lost all sight of the rest of the room when his face was pressed up against a surface covered in blue-gray fur. Bunny's arms around him were firm, like iron vices that only didn't hurt because the Easter Bunny was just that soft.

There was a voice rumbling in Jack’s ear, repeating his name in a relieved and reverent tone. A responding relief rose in Jack at the realization that Bunny had healed and the winter spirit reached up to grab a couple of handfuls of that soft fur.

“I’m okay,” Jack said as a hand cradled his face with care. “You came just in time, really.”

“Aster,” the strangely golden Pitch lookalike spoke then, keeping his equally bright sword directed at Eostre with apparent ease. Jack wasn’t sure if it was that clear strength or the light that was causing the spring god to hesitate at the face of that weapon. “We need to take care of this first.”

Jack was tucked to Bunny’s side protectively when the spring spirit turned to the golden entity. Jack came along when Bunny stepped up to stand beside the stranger, forming a united front.

"You're no match for me now, Golden General," Eostre sneered at the man, although he did keep a careful eye on the broadsword. "Your allies are weak and I am far stronger than ever before."

"Let's recount those odds," the man shot back with cultured tones as he offered the weapon's hilt to Bunny, who grasped it readily.

"I believe in you, General," Bunny said softly and the sword immediately flared with a light that was equal parts bright and beautiful. The man, the General, looked at it with an impressed glance.

"A hefty thing,” he mused as he accepted his sword back. “I will use it well."

Jack then realized that he could _feel_ the similarity between the two magical cores of the two. Much like Eostre and Pitch had felt similar, so did Bunny and this strange ‘General’ character. Perhaps, just like Eostre could take Pitch’s power for his own, Bunny could strengthen the General? Hopefully the loan would be a temporary one.

"A single man with a single weapon," Eostre crooned patronizingly. "You still think you'd strike down a god?"

“I won’t know for sure unless I try,” the General declared. “And I’ve always been ready to try.” He swung his blade, leaping forward as he directed the swing of the grand blade at what went for Eostre’s head.

The god retreated with a bellowing roar, trying to avoid even the glow of the weapon. It made sense, since the golden glow was so intense that where it hit, Eostre’s form started to smoke.

“All bluster but no substance, eh, Bunnymund?” the General goaded his adversary. “Seems you’ve only made yourself _more_ vulnerable to the light.”

Eostre screeched from three mouths at once and swiped a clawed arm at the General. The General sidestepped the attack, moving surprisingly quickly considering his weapon’s size, and then moved to counter. He swung the sword in an upward arch, and Eostre’s dark limb fell clean off.

Dark ooze flowed out of the wound, coating the General’s arms in a thick, tar-like mess. The glow of the General’s armor faded from the direct touch with something so dark and foul.

The screeching coming from the monster grew louder. Despite having been so eloquent only moments before, Eostre seemed to be losing his words now that someone had managed to injure him.

“Jack!” The call of his name had Jack turning his back on the battle. He saw Tooth and North rushing towards him, Tooth with his staff in her grasp.

“Thanks,” Jack said gratefully as he accepted his weapons back. Even if he couldn’t do much against Eostre, considering how the Yule Goat’s cold hadn’t even slowed him down, he still felt better having that weapon than being without it.

Bunny, meanwhile, had strapped on the weapons North had brought him. “Watch over Jack,” he said quickly, tapping the floor a few times before a hole opened up falteringly. “I need to go fetch Sandy.” With that he leaped down the rabbit hole. This time the hole closing didn’t summon a flower, the enchantments in Pitch’s lair difficult for Bunny’s magic to overcome.

“Honestly,” Jack huffed as he squeezed his shepherd’s crook tightly. “I can take care of myself just fine.”

“You know Bunny, always such worry-wart,” North said as he drew his swords, either just in case or with the intent to join the battle. It was hard to find an opening to join in; the General swung his sword rather recklessly and Eostre leaped around in a way that caused the walls themselves to tremble.

“Especially when it comes to the people he cares about,” Tooth added in. Her words were joking, but the worried glances she kept shooting at the battle going on betrayed her worry over the situation. They were, right now, completely relying on this stranger’s ability to fight off a monster who’d been nearly invincible so far.

But Bunny had believed n the stranger. He’s been the one to bring the General in to fight Eostre. As much as Jack’s mistrustful nature told him not to put all of his faith in a stranger, he trusted Bunny and Bunny’s judgement. It wasn’t easy to gain Bunny’s trust, and Jack knew that this level of faith wouldn’t be gained by just having similar powers, by being some sort of an alternate universe counterpart.

“The new guy looks a lot like Pitch,” Jack pointed out as he watched the General duck under the hulking form of the spring god. Then he added, just because he could: “Fights better, though.”

The General did fight well and, while he'd been victorious every time, Eostre had been forced to fight every other monster around before the General challenged him. Because of that, despite his still-apparent strength, Eostre ended up the one suffering the most injuries in the battle. Even more importantly, the injuries inflicted by the lit blade weren't healing, like the ones that had come from the demon Eostre had fought before.

While he wasn't suffering many blows, the General did falter whenever black blood spurted from a new wound and landed on him. Before the fight he'd shone even more brilliantly than Sandy, but now the glow was dulling, fading away as the pure darkness of Eostre ate away at it. It seemed like there was a limitation to how long the two combatants could keep going. Either Eostre would succumb to his wounds or the General's power would fade away first.

Bunny had given the General a burst of power, but it might not be enough to win.

Jack steeled himself, squared his shoulders and then bellowed: "Go get it, General! Beat his faces in!" He'd put his faith in this stranger, because Bunny had placed enough trust in him to give him his power.

The sword in the General's hand crackled and burst and the General swung it at Eostre, cleaving a gaping wound through the god's shadowy body. The blow threw sparks everywhere, the light burning hot enough to overpower the darkness leaking from Eostre's wound.

Tooth gasped from beside Jack. "Did you know that would happen?" she asked.

Jack shrugged. "He feels like Bunny and Bunny grows stronger with hope." He flashed Tooth a grin. "Is that enough to get you hopeful?"

"You bet." Tooth grinned. She tapped North on the shoulder and shouted towards the fight: "You can take him!"

Surprisingly, North didn't shout. Instead he sheathed his blades at his hips, which was possibly the strongest display of faith he could have expressed.

The glow of the General's sword was blinding now, and Jack had to cover his eyes even as he heard the General's battle cry echo in the hallway. The light burst brighter and an unholy scream reverberated in the air, making Jack wish he's thought to cover his ears rather than his eyes. He never wanted to hear anything like it again, simultaneously high-pitched enough to squeal in his ears and deep enough to tremble within his ribcage.

Jack uncovered his eyes to see Eostre's writing mass of a body fall down on the ground, coming apart as it did so, like a badly constructed block tower. The bulk of the body was smoking and sizzling, while smaller bits rolled across the floor tiles.

The fragments stopped rolling away and started to move back towards the rest of the body. This process was stopped, however, by golden sand mingling with the black fragments, breaking them apart into a dusty substance. Sandy floated over Eostre's beaten body and collected more of the darkness, most likely Pitch's half of the power.

Glancing around to see where Sandy had come from, Jack saw Bunny stepping out of a hole in the wall, ripping apart the remains of a dark plant in his hands. As soon as his green eyes met Jack's, they brightened with relief.

"You're safe," he said.

A sound like beads falling on the floor echoed and Jack glanced over to see the dark shape fall off Eostre, leaving him in his rabbit-like shape. Jack turned back to Bunny, suddenly remembering how Eostre had taken his friend's form because he couldn't stop thinking about him. He couldn't find any words to speak and merely hummed in response and nodded.

Bunny gave him a confused glance, before he moved past Jack to talk to the General. Jack did notice that his hand brushed down Jack's arm in a gesture that had nothing accidental about it, lingering and sweet. He stared at Bunny's back with a surprised look as Bunny commented on the thorough way with which Eostre had been dealt with.

Sandy floated up to Bunny and flashed some symbols. Bunny nodded in agreement. "We need to find the rest of this lot," he spoke out for the benefit of everyone else. "We need to return them all to their own universes, not just because they're trouble, but because we have the other universes to consider."

"Balance needs to be maintained," North commented with a nod of agreement. He glanced up and down the corridor. "Most of evil band is accounted for, though."

"Yyeah," Jack drawled and spun his shepherd's crook in his grasp. "Eostre kinda trounced them. Pitch too." He looked at the powerless Pitch lying unconscious in a doorway, then turned to Sandy. "Do we _have_ to give him his powers back?"

He didn't need to understand Sandy's sand symbols to get the gist of the other's answer. The apologetic expression on his face said it all. They had no choice.

"We left The Ripper tied up in one of Pitch's vaults," Tooth said with a gleeful grin. "I can go fetch him."

"Don't rough him up too badly," Bunny said with no real conviction. "We're supposed to be above that."

Tooth grinned and it was all teeth. "Of course."

 

* * *

 

Jack could hardly believe the danger was over. It had been a really intense few days and Jack's mood had been in the extremes of anger, worry and fear. But now everyone was safe: him, his friends and all the children who'd thankfully not even known they'd been in danger.

They'd deposited two of the Shadow Guardians back in their own dimensions, the last stop being for three plus "people". They weren't sure of the Yule Goat's remains would regenerate once he was back in his own realm, but not even the corpse of such a powerful demon could be left in a foreign world indefinitely.

Eostre, meanwhile, was as incoherent mess who couldn't form a full sentence, let alone hold a consistent form. The General had lamented that his adversary would eventually recover but, in the meantime, courage would overpower fear.

Jack the Ripper was a strange case. They didn't really know what to do with him. Der Sandmann and Belldam both had their roles and opposition on their respective Earths, but The Ripper had the kind of power no one else in his universe had, even after Bunny had stripped away the edge from his cold. It still seemed wrong to set him loose in a world with no defence against him.

General Pitchiner had offered to watch over the murderous spirit. If Yule Goat failed to recover, his world would be left without a spirit of winter. As far as the Autumn Man was concerned, Jack the Ripper had gone long enough without a proper role to play.

Surprisingly, The Ripper had not opposed the plan, even as Tooth tried to jump the gun on throwing him through the Dimensional Sieve. "I wouldn't mind being winter, if it eventually ended," The Ripper said smoothly. "It sounds a great deal better than my lot back home." While he spoke generally, Jack did notice the looks he kept shooting the barely rabbit-shaped Eostre Pitchiner was keeping a hold of.

It seemed Pitchiner noticed the looks too, since he practically threw the Pooka at the winter spirit. "Make yourself useful, then, and take Bunnymund through."

"Sure thing." Jack the Ripper was startlingly good at sounding agreeable even towards his enemies. He seemed to have a brighter disposition in general now, though, most likely thanks to his permanent temperature adjustment. He propped Eostre up against himself and murmured to the Pooka: "I'll take care of you." He then proceeded to help Eostre through the Sieve with utmost care.

"Is that an 'aww' or an 'eww'?" Tooth asked the people remaining in the room.

Jack grimaced. "More like 'I don't want to even think about it.' Jeesh."

"Maybe evil Bunny be less horrid if nursed lovingly back to health?" North mused, rubbing his bearded chin.

Pitchiner chuckled, a strange sound to hear from someone with Pitch's voice. "That would be a first," he said before addressing the Guardians as a whole: "I feel I have learned from this experience and I must thank you." The General smiled. "Once I'm back home, perhaps I will see about establishing something akin to the Guardians there."

"Thanks for the help, mate," Bunny said, offering his hand to shake. "Best of luck to you."

Pitchiner took the hand and a flash of light passed through their clasped hands, balance reasserting itself.

"Cheers," Bunny said with a wry grin.

"If only the balance wasn't so precarious on our worlds," Pitchiner murmured wistfully, giving Bunny a soulful look. "I'd certainly ask you to come with me."

Jack promptly stepped between the two Guardians of Hope and elbowed Pitchiner away from Bunny.

"Don't think so, lanky," the winter spirit hissed, hearing Bunny release a startled laugh behind him.

Pitchiner gave Jack a startled, but considering, look. "My apologies," the man said, then turned to Bunny. "I didn't know you were spoken for."

"I'm taken," Bunny said before he could think better of it. Then he _did_ think better of it and his ears flopped down in embarrassment. "I'm needed, I mean. In this world. I have a job," the Pooka floundered to correct himself while Jack enjoyed the show.

Pitchiner gave them all an acknowledging nod before passing through the Dimensional Sieve. The power of the artefact faded away after him, leaving behind a rather average-sized sieve. The only visibly exceptional thing about it was the pure silver color with no hint or tarnish. Bunny picked the item up and tucked it under his arm.

"Soooo..." Jack drawled now that Pitchiner was finally gone. "'Taken', are you?"

Bunny scowled. "I'm not listening to this," he said as he began to walk out of the chamber.

"Now _that's_ definitely an 'aww'," Tooth cooed.

Bunny walked faster. "Definitely not listening to this."

Having a brief flash of a realization, Jack started to speedwalk after the Pooka. "Better catch up. It'll take us hours to get out of here without a rabbit hole," he commented with good humor.

There was a flurry of movement from behind and Tooth zipped past Jack. "Bunny, wait!" the fairy called out. "You wouldn't really strand us here, would you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be done by Halloween, but surprise surprise it ended up being an extra long chapter! I hope you all enjoyed the conclusion and that it wasn't a terrible let-down after such a long wait.
> 
> Who knows, maybe I'll do some multiverse advetures with the Guardians in the future. The ending certainly has that kind of "and the adventure continues" vibe to it.


End file.
